Latest Maggie Smith Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• It's easy to get bogged down in bad news.

  Maggie Smith

  Easy

  Source: therumpus.net

• I'm not my mother. And so I'm not raising my kids in the same way. I don't respond in the same way. We don't spend our days in the same way because I don't necessarily enjoy the same things she likes to do.

  Maggie Smith

  Mother, Kids, Enjoy

  Source: therumpus.net

• Which is strange - I've always thought of myself as someone who writes out of difficulty. And I did do that, but I came out on the side of light more often than not.

  Maggie Smith

  Writing, Strange, Difficulty

  Source: therumpus.net

• We can't escape the shadow, so the best thing we can do is notice the light and be open to it.

  Maggie Smith

  Shadow

  Source: therumpus.net

• A lot of writing about being a mother is not so much writing about the kids themselves. They become placeholders for the shift that happens when you're suddenly in charge of other people.

  Maggie Smith

  Mother, Writing, Kids

  Source: therumpus.net

• There are responsibilities which are parental responsibilities and those are the types of things we prepare the next generation for, but no one tells you how to answer the kids' questions in the backseat of the car when they want to know what the world is for or where they came from or why any of this is happening.

  Maggie Smith

  Responsibility, Car, World

  Source: therumpus.net

• I feel now like a hinge between generations, which is strange. It just happened recently. I think it's because my daughter is so much like me at her age. I feel like I'm reliving my own mother's experience of raising me.

  Maggie Smith

  Daughter, Thinking, Age

  Source: therumpus.net

• My kids are really learning everything from scratch. It's our job to be their tour guides and camp counselors and orientation people. That's a weird responsibility, especially in a world that feels as good as it feels bad.

  Maggie Smith

  Kids, Responsibility, People

  Source: therumpus.net

• If someone is going to talk about the process of making a film, it should be the director.

  Maggie Smith

  Film

  Source: www.discdish.com

• Alan Rickman was such a terrific actor, and that was such a terrific character that he played. And it was a joy to be with him. We used to laugh together because we ran out of reaction shots. They were always - when everything had been done and the children were finished, they would turn the camera around and we'd have to do various reaction shots of amazement or sadness and things. We used to say we'd got to about number 200-and-something and we'd run out of knowing what to do when the camera came around on us. But he was a joy.

  Maggie Smith

  Running, Children, Character

  Source: www.npr.org

• I just did adore Daniel - Daniel Radcliffe, who I had worked with before "Harry Potter" and spent a long time telling all the producers they had to see him because I thought he was so terrific. And it's been sad thinking about it because of Alan Rickman.

  Maggie Smith

  Thinking, Long, Potters

  "Maggie Smith On The Pressures Of Acting: 'You Want So Much To Get It Right'". "Fresh Air" with Dave Davies, www.npr.org. February 23, 2016.

• I find it very difficult to do anything on my own now because people recognize me. This has never happened to me before because I haven't really done television before. But I suppose if you're in people's rooms all the time, I don't know - I was thinking the other night with people like DiCaprio and, you know, those big stars and Cate Blanchett, and you just think how did they exist? It's so difficult. And I think now it's very intrusive because of these cellphones, you know, with cameras.

  Maggie Smith

  Stars, Thinking, Night

  "Maggie Smith On The Pressures Of Acting: 'You Want So Much To Get It Right'". "Fresh Air" with Dave Davies, www.npr.org. February 23, 2016.

• Where you get people who want to take a picture of you or take a picture of them with you.

  Maggie Smith

  People, Want

  "Maggie Smith On The Pressures Of Acting: 'You Want So Much To Get It Right'". "Fresh Air" with Dave Davies, www.npr.org. February 23, 2016.

• I think he [Leonardo DiCaprio] is a terrific actor. And I've - I've been rooting and voting for him since "Gilbert Grape." I thought he was so amazing in that one. He was a young man, really very young boy.

  Maggie Smith

  Boys, Men, Thinking

  Source: www.npr.org

• I think there's always great tension because there never seems to be enough - there is always pressure. There's always pressure because there isn't enough time. There's never enough time for a movie, it seems to me. Never.

  Maggie Smith

  Thinking, Enough Time, Pressure

  "Maggie Smith On The Pressures Of Acting: 'You Want So Much To Get It Right'". "Fresh Air" with Dave Davies, www.npr.org. February 23, 2016.

• I think everybody who was in it thought they were all going to be Eartha Kitt or be big stars. That didn't happen, but it was a wake-up call to have one's first professional job on Broadway, I must say.

  Maggie Smith

  Jobs, Stars, Thinking

  "Maggie Smith On The Pressures Of Acting: 'You Want So Much To Get It Right'". "Fresh Air" with Dave Davies, www.npr.org. February 23, 2016.

• I'm so moved to hear Celia Johnson again, so lovely.

  Maggie Smith

  Lovely, Johnson, Celia

  "Maggie Smith On The Pressures Of Acting: 'You Want So Much To Get It Right'". "Fresh Air" with Dave Davies, www.npr.org. February 23, 2016.

• There were male colleges, and there were very few female colleges.

  Maggie Smith

  College, Males, Female

  "Maggie Smith On The Pressures Of Acting: 'You Want So Much To Get It Right'". "Fresh Air" with Dave Davies, www.npr.org. February 23, 2016.

• I had a very good English teacher who said to me that she thought I ought to do it. She - I don't know, she saw something thank goodness because I think if it hadn't been encouraged by somebody that serious, I'm not sure what would've happened to me.

  Maggie Smith

  Teacher, Thinking, Saws

  "Maggie Smith On The Pressures Of Acting: 'You Want So Much To Get It Right'". "Fresh Air" with Dave Davies, www.npr.org. February 23, 2016.

• The drama school was in Oxford - and it's funny to think of it, but in those days when I started out the University was nearly all male. And they certainly weren't mixed.

  Maggie Smith

  Drama, School, Thinking

  "Maggie Smith On The Pressures Of Acting: 'You Want So Much To Get It Right'". "Fresh Air" with Dave Davies, www.npr.org. February 23, 2016.

• I had no idea that that was around in the family anywhere. Maybe it never was. But - so they broke the way for me, if you know what I mean. I have no idea where I got the idea from to do what I do. But I think they - Ian and Alistair, my brothers kind of opened a lot of doors for me onto the world - you know, made it seem to be a very, very interesting place.

  Maggie Smith

  Brother, Mean, Thinking

  Source: www.npr.org

• Sort of what you do in drama school when asked to play something way out of your reach. Anyway, we used to laugh a lot about that. I used to say I'm not going to act old, Penelope. I'll just be myself.

  Maggie Smith

  Drama, School, Play

  "Maggie Smith On The Pressures Of Acting: 'You Want So Much To Get It Right'". "Fresh Air" with Dave Davies, www.npr.org. February 23, 2016.

• There was nobody in the family who had ever done anything like that before. My brothers - I had two brothers. They were twins. They both became architects. They were both six years older.

  Maggie Smith

  Brother, Years, Two

  "Maggie Smith On The Pressures Of Acting: 'You Want So Much To Get It Right'". "Fresh Air" with Dave Davies, www.npr.org. February 23, 2016.

• It was - it's always very nice to be somebody rather grand.

  Maggie Smith

  Nice, Very Nice

  "Maggie Smith On The Pressures Of Acting: 'You Want So Much To Get It Right'". "Fresh Air" with Dave Davies, www.npr.org. February 23, 2016.

• It's funny to be pigeonholed so late in life but there we are.

  Maggie Smith

  Late

  "Maggie Smith On The Pressures Of Acting: 'You Want So Much To Get It Right'". "Fresh Air" with Dave Davies, www.npr.org. February 23, 2016.