Maggie Smith
Actress
1934-12-28 – 2024-09-27
Maggie Smith was an English actress known for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Gosford Park, and the Harry Potter films. She received Academy Awards, BAFTAs, and multiple stage honors across her career.
Books by Maggie Smith
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Quotes by Maggie Smith
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Good BonesLife is short, though I keep this from my children.Life is short, and I've shortened minein a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,a thousand deliciously ill-advised waysI'll keep from my children. The world is at leastfifty percent terrible, and that's a conservativeestimate, though I keep this from my children.For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,sunk in a lake. Life is short and the worldis at least half terrible, and for every kindstranger, there is one who would break you,though I keep this from my children. I am tryingto sell them the world. Any decent realtor,walking you through a real shithole, chirps onabout good bones: This place could be beautiful,right? You could make this place beautiful.
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Good BonesLife is short, though I keep this from my children.Life is short, and I've shortened minein a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,a thousand deliciously ill-advised waysI'll keep from my children. The world is at leastfifty percent terrible, and that's a conservativeestimate, though I keep this from my children.For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,sunk in a lake. Life is short and the worldis at least half terrible, and for every kindstranger, there is one who would break you,though I keep this from my children. I am tryingto sell them the world. Any decent realtor,walking you through a real shithole, chirps onabout good bones: This place could be beautiful,right? You could make this place beautiful.
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It seems to me there is a change in what audiences want to see. I can only hope that's correct, because there's an awful lot of people of my age around now and we outnumber the others.
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There's a difference between solitude and loneliness.
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There's this wonderful first assistant and he'll be saying, 'Now Harry goes down among the dragons.' You have to hold yourself together. Because if you lose it for a second then you're sunk.
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I longed to be bright and most certainly never was. I was rather hopeless, I suspect.
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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.
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I like the ephemeral thing about theatre, every performance is like a ghost - it's there and then it's gone.
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There is a kind of invisible thread between the actor and the audience, and when it's there it's stunning, and there is nothing to match that.
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It's true I don't tolerate fools but then they don't tolerate me, so I am spiky. Maybe that's why I'm quite good at playing spiky elderly ladies.
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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?
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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.
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When I started acting almost 50 years ago, it wasn't about fame. It was about acting.
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