113 Quotes by Maggie Smith

The performances you have in your head are always much better than the performances on stage.

If you're lucky, I think you know what you want to do with your life. I think that's a greater gift that any of the gifts you might have when you do know, if you know what I mean. It must be awful to not know what to do.

When I started acting almost 50 years ago, it wasn't about fame. It was about acting.

An actor is somebody who communicates someone else's words and emotions to an audience. It's not me. It's what writers want me to be.

I believe that I am past my prime. I had reckoned on my prime lasting till I was at least fifty.

I wanted to be a serious actress, but of course that didn't really happen.

I tend to head for what's amusing because a lot of things aren't happy. But usually you can find a funny side to practically anything.

The chemotherapy was very peculiar, something that makes you feel much worse than the cancer itself, a very nasty thing. I used to go to treatment on my own, and nearly everybody else was with somebody. I wouldn't have liked that. Why would you want to make anybody sit in those places?

When you get into the granny era, you're lucky to get anything.