Joanna Lumley Quotes

I was once kissed on the lips by a giraffe, and I don’t think I’ve ever got over it.

I was 21 and had been going out with my boyfriend for two years when I found out I was pregnant – despite being told by doctors that I was sterile. Jamie’s father and I hadn’t discussed marriage, and to me, it wasn’t something to be entered into just to stop gossip.

The press have given me affairs I’ve never had and killed a few I did have. After a while, you learn.

I used to panic and get rattled when I was young, but as I’ve got older, I’ve started literally to live day to day. With age, you work out what matters.

I find it a great antidote lipstick and mirrors and hairspray.

There was one ‘crime’ during the whole time I was at school, when a fountain pen went missing. Stealing just didn’t happen. I was taught not to shoplift, not to steal, not to behave badly. We weren’t even allowed to drop litter.

I think handbags, not so much clothes anymore, but I think you can tell a fashion victim by their handbag.

I’ve got lots of good friends. I could have affairs. I can read a book all night, put the cat on the end of the bed. I can pick up my passport and go to France. I don’t have to ask anybody.

If you haven’t understood that if you are born you die, you scarcely deserve to be able to be alive.

I’ve looked forward to being older because you will have that many more miles covered. We mustn’t be led into thinking getting old is bad. Growing old is good.

I could never go into politics, because I’m far too impatient and I’d want to be a dictator, albeit a benevolent one… I would hope.

I think we could jam a bit more in our coffins than we do. I’m going to have some books, some I haven’t finished or haven’t read, some feathers and nice bits and pieces, the odd note. Just on the journey for the next bit.

I’ve never felt the constraints of social acceptability.

I am mean as cats’ meat about handbags: mine don’t ever look chic. I always prefer bags that aren’t made of leather.

You must swear never to go on the dole. Never be bored. Find something to do. And don’t yawn.

I’ve never been interested enough to have a career trajectory. I’ve never had any ambition or thought of what I should be doing or had any idea of what I’d like to do. Never. And still don’t. And if something comes along, I say ‘Fine.’

I was involved with the landmines before the Princess of Wales, and nobody gave a damn about people losing their limbs. It only became a success when she came along.

I am blessed beyond the realms of blessedness, and easily the greatest pleasure is giving it away

Nobody tells you Rwanda looks like Tuscany with its tiled roofs.

You only have one go at life, which is thrilling. Only you can make yourself into who you want to be. Don’t blame anybody else. You are entitled to free fresh air, and that’s it. Do the rest yourself.

As Brits, we love a do, don’t we? I adore our national celebrations. If I see a gold coach, you almost need to put me in a straitjacket, I get so excited.

China invaded Tibet. It invaded it. So all this nonsense about them being the same country is absurd. It’s called Tibet. If it was part of China, it would be called China, wouldn’t it?

I cut the labels out of my clothes because they scratch. Clothes are just little workhorses, aren’t they?

All you have to be is kind. That’s all you need. Once you’ve got that, it virtually rules out everything else.

You see, there weren’t these magazines like ‘Heat’ in my day. Always waiting to trip up these pretty girls and make them seem something horrible, something to make them look stupid and small and ugly and disgusting.

I don’t feel like I am 66 at all. I feel more like I am 35. But I have a bus pass so it must be true.

I have a toy giraffe on my bed. I’ve got photographs over my desk as well as a mask of a giraffe in my kitchen. I am totally hooked.

Cameras love pretty girls and craggy, old character men more than they can take craggy, old character women. But that’s what’s always happened. Work out how you can fit into it, and make that work. There are never going to be millions of parts for older actresses because there never were.

I’d describe myself as a saver, but just sometimes I can spend like a kicking horse! Ryman is the one shop I can’t go past without going into. I just can’t resist lovely stationery.

I’m a vegetarian, and I long for people to eat less meat, but the thing to do is not to go, ‘Eat! Less! Meat!’ It’s to say, ‘I am fit as a flea and I’m 63, I haven’t eaten meat for 40 years, and I never get diseases, I’m never ill, and I’m full of energy. So how’s about that?’

Though I was a mother at 21, being a grandmother makes the whole thing absolutely normal and gorgeous. The relief, the joy of being a grandmother is wonderful.

If you’re an enthusiast and you love the world like I do, it comes naturally. But I think charity must become more fun to give, more interactive and imaginative.

Greece has got something like 1,400 islands. There is so much of Greece you can’t know even if you’re Greek. It’s sprinkled out all around the edge of the Aegean, all over the place. It’s already a secret place wherever you go, even if it’s somewhere huge like Athens or Corinth. The place enchanted me.

The Treorchy Male Choir’s version of “Myfanwy” is one of the most glorious things I’ve ever heard in all my long life. Love and congratulations to you all.

I find it a great antidote… lipstick and mirrors and hairspray.

To be a judge you don’t have to know about books, you have to be skilled at picking shrapnel out of your head.

It’s not often you get to hang out with someone you’re really intrigued by. So when Will.i.am invited me to visit him at home, I couldn’t resist.

I dont think men are that attracted by glamour. I think women are attracted by glamour. I think men are attracted by a sense of friendship.

I hate the hand that comes out of a car and just drops litter in the street. I hate that! For some reason, it just fills me with fury! It’s just utter laziness, lack of interest in other people, lack of interest in the planet, in the hedgehog who might eat the plastic bag, it’s a lack of concern.

I’ve been given this blessing, which is my granddaughter. You’re no longer just you. You suddenly fit into the chest of drawers of life.

I never mind scrubbing floors, vacuuming or bending and carrying stuff. Each time I do it I think, this is instead of going to the gym.

When you’re young, you think life is forever, but it’s finite. I’m 68, so even by the maddest measurements, I’m in the last bit of life.

Even clingfilm – if it’s gone over a salad bowl, take it off, use it again. I wash out carrier bags; I save brown paper from parcels. I save string; I save ribbons. I separate all my bits and pieces.

Oh, I’m not beautiful. I can look beautiful; I can put beauty on. When I’m tired, I look bloody awful. I think I’m turning into the actress from ‘Dynasty,’ Linda Evans.

I’ve always used my hair for whatever it is needed for. I had it an inch long and jet black for a Pinter play I did. Changes you completely.

My mother early on taught us to respect all animals, and I mean all animals – not just cats and dogs but rats and snakes and spiders and fish and wildlife, so I really grew up believing they are just like us and just as deserving of consideration.

All the trouble you will cause by not leaving a will. All the heartache! Family feuds are going to happen anyway, so be as clear as you can. And even if it’s only to leave it to the cat’s home, make a will.

I don’t lose my temper. I used to, but I realised I would probably die of a brain hemorrhage. So I’ve governed myself not to mind about things. I have no road rage or anything like that. Because it’s life-shortening. And also, there’s no need for it; it uses up energy.

We transported eight giraffes, and there are now nine because one gave birth to a male shortly afterwards. They carry their pregnancies very well-they all looked the same.

I used to go out wearing any old rubbish, no make-up, nothing, but since mobile phones, that has all had to stop. People do come up to you so often and say hello, or want a photograph, and I just can’t do it anymore in what I used to wear. They don’t want to be seen hanging off a rabid old granny any more than I do.

The maddening thing is as actors of either sex, we get better as we get older, and so when you are 65, you think, ‘I could play Juliet now. I understand it.’

I think most of the world would like to be Scottish. All the Americans who come here never look for English blood or Welsh, only for Scottish and Irish. It’s understandable. The Scots effectively created the face of the modern world: the railways, the bridges, the tunnels.

I don’t think men are that attracted by glamour. I think women are attracted by glamour. I think men are attracted by a sense of friendship.

People have always tut-tutted about actors stepping out of line politically. And I can sort of see it because what you’ve got your fame for is not being someone who can influence things, so it’s cheating.

Learn from nature. Stuff lives and stuff dies all the time, you know. Animals and birds and flowers. Trees come and go, and we come and go. That’s it. So we should all seize life and make the most of what we have while we can.

Sure, good things can go badly wrong. Nevertheless, there’s always another day.

In Kenya you’ve got the great birds and monkeys leaping through the trees overhead. It’s a chance to remember what the world is really like.

We’ve forgotten to respect clothes and consider who made them and where the material came from. We’ve been encouraged to buy things and, if we don’t like them, bin them. When I grew up, we’d repair things or alter them.