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.

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

I cut the labels out of my clothes because they scratch. Clothes are just little workhorses, aren't they?

I admire politicians. It is a really tough assignment, and I would fall at the first fence.

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.

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

That's the staggering, humorous thing about money. If you haven't got taste, money doesn't matter: You'll always look ghastly.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

My great-great-great uncle - or maybe it's only two 'greats' - crossbred the first Aberdeen Angus.

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.

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.

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.

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?

Oh, I'm not beautiful. I can look beautiful; I can put beauty on. When I'm tired, I look bloody awful. I think I'm turning into the actress from 'Dynasty,' Linda Evans.

I haven't got a very sweet tooth, but I love salted things like nuts. I would have to be dragged in by a lorry if I ate as many salted peanuts as I would like to.

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.

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.

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.

I'm not terribly good at three-page recipes - I tend to skip bits - or anything that involves marinating things in juniper berries.

I find it a great antidote... lipstick and mirrors and hairspray.

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.