Top 66 June Brown Quotes

I didn’t know much about the East End and I didn’t go trudging round to research it – couldn’t be bothered with all that – but my grandmother was a cockney so I used her voice for Dot. I don’t think it sounded very real at the beginning.

I was taught at my drama school that it’s not what you feel, it’s what you make the audience feel.

I never touch fast food.

I don’t want a retainer for ‘EastEnders,’ I’ve left. I’ve left for good.

I was quite a clever child, I don’t know what happened later on.

I say sorry for everything.

I can’t say my life has been dominated by tragedy. I refuse to accept that. I’ve had less than some, more than others.

I think I can do things better than other people, which is dreadful.

I like silence.

Acting is a very strange thing. It isn’t about trying to feel, for me, it is about thinking.

I’m absolutely pedantic about language; it must go back to my schools.

As long as I am capable of working, and can learn lines and move around, I will carry on. I’d be utterly bored if I stopped.

I could have played Dot as a very dreary woman with a list of illnesses, but I played her with an edge, so it was funny.

No, I wouldn’t vote Labour, dear, if you paid me. I vote Conservative.

You’ve always got to have something to say, haven’t you? For an interview. Something to talk about.

I wasn’t a natural mother.

I think that’s why a lot of people are very lonely and get ill when they’re older, because I think loneliness and having no motivation, nothing to work towards… I think it kills you.

I don’t bother with computers, although I have an electronic reader.

I get lots of letters, and I reply to them all personally.

I was a procrastinator and a bookworm but I passed all my School Certificate exams, the equivalent of O-levels; I got three distinctions, three honours and three good passes.

My views are politically incorrect. Such as why we allow children to say what they think. It’s not how to bring up children. And now people give their children choices, like what they want to eat. Kids can’t deal with choices.

I watch ‘News At Ten’ and ‘Loose Women’ and that gives me all I need to know.

I’ve had two pensions each that have gone down by 50%.

Characters can get under your skin when you play them for a long time.

All the women in ‘Coronation Street’ and ‘Brookside,’ they are all so funny. A lot of women bore me, but I love the strong women in soaps.

I usually have about 16 pills a day of various descriptions – I also have minerals from Salt Lake City and amino acids that get sent to me from Australia.

The elderly in Britain aren’t really given enough respect.

I don’t want to be a burden to anyone.

I’ve had tragedy in my life, but I think that gives me a depth that I can bring to my work. I’d like to see more older women on TV because they can bring that life experience and emotion to a performance.

My handwriting was so good I won a prize, a cardboard cut-out of a farmyard; my mother threw it away when we moved.

I can play CDs and I can use an ordinary mobile.

I wish it were September 1948 and I wish I were 21 again.

It’s much easier for me to cry and do all those things on the stage than in real life.

I would not like to go into a care home. That’s my worst fear. I like my own home and would like to die here.

I am never going to be made a Dame doing Dot.

Turmeric is good for the brain.

I got a grant for the Old Vic Theatre School in London, which had just started. It was only five terms; they used to break you down and never quite put you together again but it was an excellent training.

I’ve known great happiness.

I can see where everything is around the house but nothing’s clear.

I can’t go out socially. I never go to soap awards now. I don’t recognize people I know and they would think that I was snubbing them.

Just pray for your health and strength, hearing and eyesight, and an active mind.

My life is just – logistics – fitting everything in.

I would be happy if I were Jesus. I’d like to fix everyone else’s problems more than my own.

In 1930, when I was three and my sister was four, my father sent us to Miss Tracy’s, a little ‘dame’s school’ in Ipswich. I do remember playing with an abacus. He took us away after a term because he thought we weren’t learning anything.

I want to wear colours that cheer people. Forget all this navy and beige and black.

I was having the worst year of my life before the offer from ‘EastEnders’ came through. I was 58, my kids were grown up, and I had no money and few offers.

The Old Vic is special to me because that’s where I began. I lived in New Bond Street in London in a flat that cost 4.20 a week. I split the rent with friends. We used to go to concerts, theatres, we went to the Proms.

Personally my mind needs occupying. If it isn’t, it goes all over the place.

Don’t like makeup. I don’t use it much unless I go out – I think it makes you look older.

A little girl once wrote to me saying she was coming to live with me – because Dot always stuck up for her son.

It’s a dreadful thing to be strapped for cash when you are elderly. It’s awful when you’re young, too, but you always have hope.

When you’re acting you are in love with someone, it’s very hard not to think you are.

I never wanted to be an actress. I wanted to go into the medical professional. Acting was not important enough. That was a hobby – nothing to do with what you did in life.

I’ve always been afraid of being poor when I’m old.

If your sight is poor, there’s very little you can do.

I would not want to be unable to talk. Imagine not being able to talk when you’re a talkative person.

My thirties were ruined by being pregnant. I loved my babies but I had been quite successful before I had them, playing Lady Macbeth and Hedda Gabler, one of my favourite roles.

I’m technology illiterate.

An actor needs his voice.

I do pray about my sight – maybe it will return.

I can talk through anything. I even talked while I was having my tonsils removed in Ardentinny when I was in the ATS.

It is dangerous to have a favourite word.

I’ve never entertained the idea of retiring because I’ve never regarded myself as having a proper job. Anyway, retirement can be the death of you.

I felt an intense loneliness after my sister died. I was seven at the time, she was eight, and I realised after her death that she accepted me for who I was.

I miss Bob, but I don’t want another marriage.

At 16 I was very interested in palmistry. The fate line on my right palm broke into two parts that ran for a quarter of an inch on parallel tracks. I used to look at it and wonder, ‘What will happen?’