Top 30 Jane Birkin Quotes

Big Ben… hearing the chimes makes me feel at home.

When I was at school I used to scream in trains, in those concertina things between the carriages. I used to try to be so good that sometimes I couldn’t bear it any more.

Jacques Doillon wanted me to be in his film, ‘La Fille Prodigue,’ and there I was, expecting, for some reason, this great bearded man, when a splendid looking red-Indian style man appeared at my door. I said no to his film because I knew that if I said yes, I would run off with him.

My first husband, John Barry, was a composer. I couldn’t believe that this sophisticated, talented genius chose me and not any of the other girls. I was so flattered, so excited, so in love with him. Of course, my parents were horrified, as he’d been married once and had a daughter with the au pair girl.

I think I did a lot of humorous films when I was young, and they were No. 1 films.

People always like things that seem exotic.

Without my specs on, I think I look really great; then I put them on, and I scream. But at 62, I still think less is better. I use Clarins foundation, but I don’t put it everywhere – I hate that covered look – so just on the sides of my nose where the veins have gone bang.

I colour my hair mousy brown and I wear makeup only on stage. I use Laura Mercier – something called Biscuit, I think. I run one tiny sponge over my face and cover the red blotches. If I’ve got some rouge, I’ll bung it on my mouth and cheeks.

I only like boutiques.

I love Dickens because it makes me chuckle to myself so. He has taken me to another world and out of so many earthly miseries.

I think there is an extreme charm in the French, and actually it’s their bolshiness that makes them such fun.

Any film I see at two o’clock in afternoon with my mother seems to cast a strange spell that means we both come out sobbing.

I feel most comfortable in an old pair of jeans, Converse, and a man’s jersey. My best friend cuts my hair with kitchen scissors.

I love the French very much, and I think they know that. I’ve been adopted here. They treat me as one of their own.

He painted me when I was young because he was in love with me, but now that he has loved me he doesn’t paint me anymore.

I’d rather live on my own than live with a face that looks at me with the wrong eyes.

My father was a painter, so I was encouraged to take a sketchbook everywhere. Cameras are perishable, but I still have tonnes of sketchbooks from all the trips I’ve ever been on. It gets you by when you don’t know what to give people as a gift; drawings are good souvenirs.

Nothing has ever touched on what fun childhood was. Summer holidays were bliss. We made home movies, with real stories in them. My father had such charm and charisma, and made everything so funny.

David Attenborough… has that wonderful, breathy voice, and he’s always so fascinated by what he’s seeing. There’s nothing about him that I can’t find attractive.

At school, I used to hear, ‘You’re a half-caste.’ They’d laugh at my figure and say, ‘Are you a boy or a girl?’

I have never written a book about my life, despite being offered purses of gold. I made ‘Boxes’ because I wanted to make a sincere depiction of a daughter who has lost her father, or the jealousy one can feel towards a daughter who has become more beautiful than you and whose stepfather starts to take her shopping.

I don’t know why people keep banging on about the ’60s. I came from a conventional family and I didn’t go off with different people – I rather wish I had now, seeing all the fun everyone else was having.

Robert Louis Stevenson… I’m focusing on the late short stories that I was ignorant of. I always thought he was a boys’ author, but he’s not at all.

When you start recognising that you’re having fun, life can be delightful.

There’s no fun in a bag if it’s not kicked around so that it looks as if the cat’s been sitting on it – and it usually has. The cat may even be in it! I always put on stickers and beads and worry beads. You can get them from Greece, Israel, Palestine – from anywhere in the world.

I had a baby at 19 and was a grandmother by 39. Now, my children lend me their children to take them off to Brittany. It’s divine. I’m quite exceptionally lucky. I’ve never had a week without having all three of my daughters on the telephone.

If I were mayor, I’d invite everyone to have free boat trips on the river and free balloon rides over the city. I’d let the elderly in residential homes wander free.

It’s usually a jolly good trick to pick up a local tour guide. They can tell you all the anecdotes that make a place interesting. I’m one for rushing off to museums at the crack of dawn, eating fabulous things on terraces for lunch, and enjoying long dinners on balmy evenings.

I put some red stuff on my mouth and cheeks so I look healthy – any old red lip pencil and a lip colour from Dr. Hauschka in a crushed berry tone. I never put anything on my eyes, or I look like Joan Crawford.

If you fall in love with a country and its people, that makes any country warm to you.