"So many of the very funny things are very natural, we do them all every day. They’re just that little bit heightened, which is what makes you fall on the floor when you’re doing it. Sometimes we can’t finish a take because we’re laughing too much, and sometimes you see the cameraman chuckling and we have to do it again. Not having done many comedies, that must be the sign of a very funny script!"

"I was kind of a tomboy climbing trees so it never crossed my mind, no."

"As a child in North London it never crossed my mind that I would ever play the Wicked Witch of the East."

"I think the only way you can successfully be a mum and an actress is by not carrying around the burden of the character. Between the time the director says "Action" and "Cut," it's all true for me. But when I stop saying the lines, it's not true anymore."

"Frank: There, you see, an example of assonance. Rita: Oh, it means getting' the rhyme wrong."

"Rita: Have they sacked y'? Frank: Not quite. Rita: Well, why y' – packing your books away. Frank: Australia. [After a pause] Some weeks ago – made rather a night of it. Rita: Did y' bugger the bursar? Frank: Metaphorically."

"Rita: Will they sack you. Frank: [lying flat on the floor] The sack? God no; that would involve making a decision. Pissed is all right. To get the sack, it'd have to be rape on a grand scale; and not just with students either. [Rita gets up and moves across to look at him] That would only amount to a slight misdemeanour. For dismissal it'd have to be nothing less than buggering the bursar."

"Well, I flung the window open an' I shouted, "Yes, that's right Millandra – I'm goin' to Greece for the sex; sex for breakfast, sex for dinner, sex for tea, an’ sex for supper." Well, she just ignored me but this little cab driver leans out an' pipes up, "That sounds like a marvellous diet, love." "It is," I shouted back, "have y' never heard of it? It's called the 'F' Plan.""

"I'm not sayin' she's a bragger, but if you've been to Paradise, she's got a season ticket."

"Marriage is like the Middle East, isn't it? There's no solution."

"She divorced her husband, y' know. I never knew him, it was before I met Jane. Apparently she came back from work one mornin' an' found her husband in bed with the milkman. With the milkman, honest to God. Well, apparently, from that day forward Jane was a feminist. An' I've noticed, she never takes milk in her tea."

"I hear that the no-smoking crowd are now operating at the National. Surely that sort of mentality doesn't belong in a theatre, it isn't a place where you impose rules on people, it's a dirty radical place where an actor can work with a fag in his hand."

"Like a heartbeat. Something inside me. Some dream. I think it's being a dreamer as a child. Dreamy kids become actors, don't they?"

"Nothing is further than Earth from Heaven: nothing is nearer than Heaven to Earth."

"The theatre is the best way of showing the gap between what is said and what is seen to be done, and that is why, ragged and gap-toothed as it is, it has still a far healthier potential than some poorer, abandoned arts."

"The act of writing is the act of discovering what you believe."

"A weak mind sinks under prosperity, as well as under adversity. A strong and deep mind has two highest tides – when the moon is at the full, and when there is no moon."

"Children always turn toward the light."

"In oratory the will must predominate."

"None but a fool is always right."

"Our poetry in the eighteenth century was prose; our prose in the seventeenth, poetry."

"Poetry is the key to the hieroglyphics of Nature."

"Purity is the feminine, Truth the masculine, of Honour."

"Smiles are the language of love."

"Some people carry their hearts in their heads; very many carry their heads in their hearts. The difficulty is to keep them apart, and yet both actively working together."

"Sudden resolutions, like the sudden rise of the mercury in the barometer, indicate little else than the changeableness of the weather."

"The virtue of Paganism was strength: the virtue of Christianity is obedience."

"The ultimate tendency of civilization is toward barbarism."

"Thought is the wind, knowledge the sail."

"To those whose god is honour, disgrace alone is sin."

"Few women care to be laughed at and men not at all, except for large sums of money."

"Plays by Alan Ayckbourn have been attracting larger audiences in the regional theatres than those of Shakespeare."

"They've started this filthy floodlit cricket with cricketers wearing tin hats and advertisements for contraceptives on their boots."

"The darker the subject, the more light you must try to shed on the matter. And vice versa."

"A comedy is just a tragedy interrupted, I once said. Do you finish with the kiss or when she opens her eyes to tell him she loves him and sees blonde hairs on his collar?"

"There are very few people on top of life, and the rest of us don't like them very much."

"The lush sound and the sheer power of her voice are, to put it simply, incredible."

"I would have liked to have had kids, and had a family, but I think in my profession it's quite difficult to achieve because you're always working. I think I'm the kind of person as well, had I had kids, I wouldn't have gone on working. I would have jacked it all in. But it's a wonderful life I have, so I'm very fulfilled in other ways. Am I ever bothered by it? Well it's too late now, (laughs)."

"It was terribly difficult. It's not something I ever wanted in my life. Naively I just thought, 'oh I've got this great part'. I never thought about the reality of all the stuff that went with it. I'm actually quite a shy person when I'm not on stage."

"I loved it. We would rehearse in this dark theatre, unaware of the sunny day outside, and be immersed in the magic of creating something from our imaginations."

"On the very rare occasion when they don't all jump up out of their seats I'm always mortified."

"And so one becomes, or I become, anyway, slightly obsessive, particularly about my health, because you wouldn't want to read the letters people write when you're off and they're disappointed - it's so awful, the guilt one feels for not being there."

"I thought: "Gosh, it really has been worth the wait." And I think had I gone with Evita, I probably wouldn't have been ready to deal with it. It was just the most perfect time to go with that particular show."

"Oh, it was awful, and I vowed to myself I would never, ever push myself to the edge that much again. It was really frightening. Because absolutely everything seemed to be impossible to deal with, just little things became major - noise, if someone had a radio on, or even the sound of traffic, or being in someone's company for longer than 10 minutes - I started to find it all too much."

"I did miss the music a bit - but only in the wings, when I was waiting to go on. It seemed dreadfully quiet, rather unnerving. But the wonderful thing was that one didn't have to be quite so obsessive about one's health, and one's voice."

"If you’re a serious actor, you wouldn’t put yourself up for one of those shows in case you got bumped off the first week and all your colleagues saw it."

"My dad always told me that perseverance furthers. He was right."

"Learn to take rejection, keep fit and work only with the best in your field."

"Actors already striving in the theatre wouldn't dream of putting themselves on these shows; it means that only about 10% of the talent out there is being auditioned for parts."