Top 33 Emma Thompson Quotes

When husbands and fathers leave, their wives and daughters tend to value themselves less as a result.

I don’t mean being famous is a perk, because one knows that it’s not necessarily a perk, but there are certain perks to being well-known and respected in one’s field. Public perks. Like, I don’t know, general friendliness and willingness to please, just to point out two.

I think that my work is my attempt, I suppose, is to try and become a piece of connective tissue. I’m trying to communicate with people here and in America – in rich countries – about what I see on the ground in badly affected areas.

I have a nervous breakdown in the film and in one scene I get to stand at the top of the stairs waving an empty sherry bottle which is, of course, a typical scene from my daily life, so isn’t much of a stretch.

A lot of very beautiful women can be a pain because all they’re thinking about is how they look.

Its unfortunate and I really wish I wouldn’t have to say this, but I really like human beings who have suffered. They’re kinder.

If you don’t want women to do whatever they need to do then you must provide them with food, you must provide them with shelter and their basic human rights.

The trouble is it’s very difficult to pin-point the most important thing because Aids affects everyone in different levels of society, differently and you have to respond to it differently.

Sometimes you’ll have some things, and sometimes you’ll have other things. And you do not need it all at once; it’s not good for you.

This morning, I went to wipe my hands on a tea towel, and while I was using it, it seemed like it felt a bit light. I unfolded it and realized my daughter had cut little bits out of it to make frocks for her dolls!

I understand what it’s like to come with your family, and to uproot yourself and come to another culture. You need a lot of support. People say, ‘She’s got her daughter; she’s got her husband.’ Yeah, but she hasn’t got anyone else.

It is remarkable how many misconceptions there are here about life in the developing world and I think that that knowledge gap has done a lot to contribute to the imbalance quite frankly.

If you’re actually allowing your creative part to control your writing rather than a more commercial instinct or motive, then you’ll find that all sorts of interesting things will bubble up to the surface.

Maybe I don’t take myself so seriously any more. And I don’t care how I’m judged. I’m past all that.

Film is so much to do with perfection and how differently you can feel about someone at the beginning of the film and the end of the film.

A lot of people in my world – in the acting world – have either lost friends to Aids or live with HIV because its origin in our culture, in New York for instance, was in the gay community.

I don’t think people understand that being poor means you have to work from dawn until dusk just to survive through the day. I think there’s some notion that poor people lie about all day not doing anything.

What was important was trying to create something that families could watch together and enjoy together.

Any problem, big or small, within a family, always seems to start with bad communication. Someone isn’t listening.

Tell him I mind having to look pretty, that’s what I mind, because it is so much more of an effort.

We need men and women to sit down and talk to each other about sex honestly and openly. That would help us fight Aids so immediately. But our lack of communication is hugely problematic.

I have had lots of friends who’ve been affected by Aids and a very good friend of mine, Oscar Moore, died of Aids and I was with him in his last year quite a bit. And of course he was a man living in a very rich culture with a wealthy family who was able to afford health care.

Indeed – judicious, consistent parenting is a dream of mine. No judgements, learning space and listening carefully are my goals.

The fact is that young people are going to have sex whether you like it or not.

We belabour, I think, under a very heavy crust of consumerism really.

I do think that despite my best efforts to resist it, I am now a grown-up. It’s due to lots of very difficult decisions that you make over a long period of time – about motherhood, wifehood, and work, and all the things that one has to make decisions about.

You can’t imagine what satisfaction can be gotten from throwing a pie into someone’s face.

One is a child when one has a child. No one says, ‘You will never be the same again.’ Which is the truth! And we’re all supposed to be happy all the time. What is that about?

I think the point about ActionAid is what it’s asking people to do is engage with poor people in developing countries and understand what their lives are like and understand how the way we live our lives impacts on theirs.

During an election, it’s like they’re doing my job: they’re going around banging the drum for their party and selling their movie. You know, it’s the same thing.

Children are the most wonderful audiences. What’s struck me most is that that they watch it so silently, until the end when they shriek and shout and clap.

We’ve got people looking at our seamy side and our sad side a lot of the time because that’s easier. It’s much more difficult to make a film about happiness with lots of jokes in it.

London has always been a haven for victims of cruelty, and been improved by them. Yet I can see it changing now. Outsiders are demonised, there are little bits of legislation, people are scared.