Lumley Quotes & Sayings

As soon as you reach a certain age, you're thrown onto a kind of mental scrap heap. — Joanna Lumley

I should think just about every young writer - which I was at the time - would be influenced by HPL. As an American writer of weird fiction, he was at the top of the class. — Brian Lumley

I don't do girlfriendy sort of things, like shopping or going to spas. Spas fill me with horror. Frankly, I'd be more interested in doing a walk through the sewers of London! — Joanna Lumley

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. — Joanna Lumley

I'm aware of my body. — Joanna Lumley

But there's a little guy who sits astride my brain with a whip, and if I'm away from the machine for more than a couple of hours during the day, this little guy's lashing away. — Brian Lumley

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. — Joanna Lumley

I'm very good at getting up in the morning - so much of my life has been spent on film sets where we start at the crack of dawn. — Joanna Lumley

You have to feel more involved than just writing out a cheque. Charity is almost the wrong word - I think people are beginning to feel more responsible for the world. — Joanna Lumley

NASA space scientists have been studying giraffe skin so they can apply what they learn from it to the construction of spacesuits. — Joanna Lumley

The future is a devious thing. — Brian Lumley

It's an incredibly difficult thing to bring a giraffe down. They can kill a lion with a single blow from their feet. — Joanna Lumley

Giraffes are fairytale animals, almost heraldic - as if from the land of fables. They have extremely beautiful faces, huge eyes, very sensitive nostrils and oh, blue tongues! — Joanna Lumley

I can't cut out a piece of cloth and make a lovely dress, but I can mend tears in shirts and sew on buttons. — Joanna Lumley

If I sounded like Joanna Lumley, I'd never shut up! — Michele Deppe

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

The amazing thing now is that most of those so-called critics who were telling me to find my own voice seem to have lost theirs. — Brian Lumley

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. — Joanna Lumley

I have friends who read my books in Greek. — Brian Lumley

I'm three quarters Scottish, but I sound English. I don't really see British as a race. — Joanna Lumley

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. — Joanna Lumley

Our bodies will be recycled one way or another, but what about our ideas and minds and characters? Primordial soup? The bourne from which no traveller returns? Interesting and exciting. — Joanna Lumley

A lot of us are ruled by fear during our lives - afraid we'll get burgled, afraid a dog will bite us, afraid we'll get fat, afraid someone will leave us. Once you lose fear, life becomes sweeter, and that happens as you get older. I'm sure by the time I'm 80, I'll be able to do absolutely anything! — Joanna Lumley

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?' — Joanna Lumley

I find it a great antidote ... lipstick and mirrors and hairspray. — Joanna Lumley

But other vampire stories? Well, no, I really haven't read too many, and I can't say I'm crazy about romantic vampires anyway - to me the vampire is simply an evil monster. — Brian Lumley

And I have to consider myself fortunate, because there are plenty of writers who spend most of a lifetime looking for that certain something without ever finding it. — Brian Lumley

Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room. — Joanna Lumley

You can't be vain as an actor. In 'Ab Fab,' we were made up as old women with bald wigs and jowly necks, and we looked fantastic. — Joanna Lumley

I am now an old lioness, if I see my young ones getting out of order, I've got to be able to say to them this is not how lions behave. This is not right. — Joanna Lumley

If your family loves you, you're fine. What you can't grow up without is love. — Joanna Lumley

Blood is the life. — Brian Lumley

I would do anything to keep looking the job. I think you make an extra effort if you're on show. — Joanna Lumley

I think laptops should be banned from schools. Until you can prove you can add up on your fingers or think independently in your head, you have learnt nothing. — Joanna Lumley

But I've found that to talk too much about movies is the kiss of death. If it happens then it happens, is all. — Brian Lumley

Romance is quite an overblown word. This idea of chocolates and champagne and that's it. There's more to love than that. Romance is quite a soppy word. Love is much more important. — Joanna Lumley

Way back in the 1970s, I was eating a steak, and I looked down, and for the first time it suddenly looked like flesh to me - like a dead creature. In a flash, I realized that every time I ate any kind of meat, something had been killed for me, and I stopped eating all animals, not just cows and pigs but chickens and fish. — Joanna Lumley

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. — Joanna Lumley

I'm tall with broad shoulders, and therefore, I like clothes with a bit of a swagger - mannish clothes that you can wear with a lot of feminine, sweet tops. I put my own looks together - a favourite coat, a bit of vintage, a bit of high street. — Joanna Lumley

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

I think I'm a spiritual person. I don't really go to church often when services are on, but I like going in when they are empty and quiet, and just sitting there and thinking for a little while. — Joanna Lumley

In Ethiopia ... you might find a seven-year-old expected to take 15 goats out into the fields for the whole day with only a chapati to eat and his whistle. Why are we so afraid to give our children responsibilities like this? — Joanna Lumley

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. — Joanna Lumley

If the Gurkhas can't live in Britain, then I don't want to, either. — Joanna Lumley

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. — Joanna Lumley

I can't see any difference in having your hair dyed, your teeth fixed, your nose done, or your face smoothed out or lifted. — Joanna Lumley

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.' — Joanna Lumley

Nowadays, people resort to all kinds of activities in order to calm themselves after a stressful event: performing yoga poses in a sauna, leaping off bridges while tied to a bungee, killing imaginary zombies with imaginary weapons, and so forth. But in Miss Penelope Lumley's day, it was universally understood that there is nothing like a nice cup of tea to settle one's nerves in the aftermath of an adventure- a practice many would find well worth reviving. — Maryrose Wood

I'll know when the ideas aren't fresh anymore. And I'll know when writing doesn't give me a thrill anymore. — Brian Lumley

Giraffes are completely tranquil - they have no predators as adults because there's not an animal in the jungle stupid enough to go for them. — Joanna Lumley

Me? As England's answer to Jonah Lomu? Joanna Lumley, more likely. — Damian Hopley

Sure, good things can go badly wrong. Nevertheless, there's always another day. — Joanna Lumley

The Army was my bread and butter. — Brian Lumley

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. — Joanna Lumley

Women are very different to men, and that hasn't been respected. So when people say there's never been a good woman painter or poet or engineer or whatever, they don't understand that our skills are many simultaneously and men's skills are single. — Joanna Lumley

I always knew that good stuff would come along when I was older. So when I was 18, I longed to be 30; when I was 30, I longed to be 50. I've always looked forward to my next birthday. — Joanna Lumley

Now, after 18 years, not a sign of Lovecraft in my work. — Brian Lumley

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. — Joanna Lumley

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. — Joanna Lumley

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

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. — Joanna Lumley

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. — Joanna Lumley

There is something so quiet and so industrious, something so Viking about the Scots. — Joanna Lumley

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. — Joanna Lumley

I'm a pathetic haggler and often give more than the original price out of a misplaced sense of duty. — Joanna Lumley

I never wanted to go to university: books seemed to have all the answers, and the questions, too. I went to work for Jean Muir as her in-house model. Miss Muir - as she will always be to me - was interested in everything. — Joanna Lumley

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? — Joanna Lumley

The concept of Shwopping is so clever, I think. The idea is that every time someone goes shopping, they can take an unwanted item of clothing and pop it in the recycling bin in their M&S store for Oxfam. — Joanna Lumley

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. — Joanna Lumley

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. — Joanna Lumley

I have never had anything done to my face because then you end up looking as they all do in America. Look at Judi Dench: she would never be as good if she had had work done. — Joanna Lumley

We met and married when both of us knew exactly what our jobs were. He was only 32, but he'd been all over the place. I'd been working on films and television shows all over the world. — Joanna Lumley

It's so important to keep a marriage alive with small treats and doing little things for each other. Just remembering to say nice things and to have listening time is vital. That ghastly phrase 'quality time' means taking three minutes to sit down and be still with someone rather than yelling over your shoulder as you rush out. — Joanna Lumley

If I had killed Crow off I can think of least six novels I would never have written, 400,000 words' worth of very necessary experience. — Brian Lumley

If you haven't understood that if you are born you die, you scarcely deserve to be able to be alive. — Joanna Lumley

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

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. — Joanna Lumley

There are lots of other things that I haven't done, places I haven't seen. So eventually I'll have to find time for those things while there still is time. — Brian Lumley

Hundreds of political prisoners still suffer in Tibetan prisons. Freedom of speech is not allowed in any sense. It is illegal to possess a photo of the Dalai Lama. — Joanna Lumley

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

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. — Joanna Lumley

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. — Joanna Lumley

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. — Joanna Lumley

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. — Joanna Lumley

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. — Joanna Lumley

Writers are in the entertainment business, and it gives me lots of pleasure to entertain my readers. — Brian Lumley

I prefer not to eat food that has a face. — Joanna Lumley

Ah, Scotland. I am three-parts Scottish and terribly proud of it, although maybe we should divide it into eighths, because my two-eighths are Danish and English, the Lumley part. But the bulk of the rest of me is Scottish - and Scottish ministers especially. — Joanna Lumley

To be in something as iconic as a Dracula film, and to be playing Jessica van Helsing, who would have been Dracula's choice for a bride, through history and beyond the grave, was a thrill. — Joanna Lumley

Theyre not group animals, theyre completely solitary, so if the babys mother is taken away, theres no system of aunts ... their whole system is destroyed. — Joanna Lumley

But while our parting was mutually acceptable and even expedient, still it was painful. And I would like to think it hurt both of us, for I certainly felt it: a wrenching inside, like some small but improbably necessary organ was no longer in there, that it was missing, torn or fallen out. And at the time I'd thought that was the end of it; what was missing was gone forever — Brian Lumley

My grandmother is a famous atlas. — Joanna Lumley

Clothes that are too tight make you look bigger. If you've been trying to shed pounds, and it doesn't go, buy the next size up. I never care what size my clothes are. — Joanna Lumley

I never go to the gym - I can't be doing with it. But I run up and down the stairs, wash my feet in the basin to keep supple, and I don't eat things that have a pulse. — Joanna Lumley

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. — Joanna Lumley

Certainly there are dozens of over-50 actresses who look great: Sophia Loren, Susan Sarandon, Ursula Andress, Stefanie Powers, Raquel Welch, Barbara Eden, Joanna Lumley, Linda Gray - the list is endless, and these are just the actresses! I have many friends in their 60s, 70s and 80s, not in the limelight, but who all look absolutely stunning. — Joan Collins

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. — Joanna Lumley

I switch off lights like a maniac. I drive at reasonable speeds so that I don't waste petrol. — Joanna Lumley

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. — Joanna Lumley

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. — Joanna Lumley