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" I told them I wouldn't sign a blank cheque. "

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" I was blessed by my parents and my antecedents by a very strong work ethic. I mean, being a Member of Parliament is 24/7, just as much as when you're actually doing a play. It's not quite 24/7, but it's the work that counts. "

" I have never believed you make your case stronger by bad-mouthing your opposition. "

" As I've had occasion to say before, I'm a pretty anti-sociable Socialist. "

" My job is to see the world through the character's eyes. "

" Why put make-up on when you only have to take it off again? "

" Everything I had been taught to regard as a vice - and I still regard them as vices - under Thatcherism was in fact a virtue: Greed, selfishness, no care for the weaker, sharp elbows, sharp knees. "

" No, I'm not recognized in London. What would people recognize? "

" You've got to sing like you don't need the money. "

" My mother kept all my awards on the sideboard of her front room, and she polished them. She polished everything religiously. And it doesn't take long for the very thin layer of gold to disappear and the base metal underneath to show through. "

" Anything I could have done that was legal to get Margaret Thatcher's government out I was prepared to do. I could not believe what she was doing to this country. "

" It always amazed me - it still does - that people offer me work. And when the theater was my basic bread and butter, every time a show finished, I was convinced I would never work again. "

" You don't do a play to compete for an award. This was the argument I always had over the Oscars. I didn't win them. They were given to me. All I did was 2 films. People always say the analogy is Olympic gold medals. "

" It would be nice if education was free to everyone who wanted it, but that's not the world we live in. "

" I've always been ambitious to be very good at what I do. "

" My life was transformed by the Labour government of 1945. It was transformative for millions of people like me, you know - education, the health service. It was proof that politics can make life better for people; that a social dream can become a social reality by the power of government. "

" The best theater is trying to tell the truth, and the best politics is trying to tell the truth. "

" Men can be a great deal of work for very little reward. "

" I look forward to growing old and wise and audacious. "

" My money goes to my agent, then to my accountant and from him to the tax man. "

" If I'm too strong for some people, that's their problem. "

" Acting is not about dressing up. Acting is about stripping bare. The whole essence of learning lines is to forget them so you can make them sound like you thought of them that instant. "

" I find it extraordinary that contemporary dramatists don't find women interesting. Women are rarely, if ever, the central dramatic engine; they're there as an adjunct, and that hasn't changed at all. "

" My fear with 'Lear' was that I would not have the physical or vocal strength. But this play, it's all in your head. That was one of the really interesting things when we were rehearsing it: We were all exhausted because it was all up here. "

" One hell of an outlay for a very small return, with most of them. "

" The best teacher is an audience. The ideal performance is when that group of strangers sitting in the dark gets energy from the group in the light and sends energy back to us. When it really works, a perfect circle is formed. "

" I turn my feet in when I'm sitting down. I tend to put my arms across me when I'm sat thinking; I bend forwards. Loads of protective curves. "

" Our job is to unleash the play. It's not just about your character or interaction with the other characters. There's an energy in all good plays which you have to find. And that is part and parcel of ensuring that an audience gets what it's about. "

" You can go onto that stage every night, and it's always the equivalent of going onto the topmost diving board, and you don't know if there's any water in the pool. "

" If a woman is successful, then she's deemed to be the exception that proves the rule. If a woman fails, well, we're all failures. That kind of underlying approach to our gender doesn't seem to me to have changed an iota. "

" When I was feeding myself by being a professional actress, I never got a good notice in the 'Evening Standard.' And when I changed direction and became a Labour MP, I was the wrong political party for the 'Evening Standard.' "