Emma Thompson Quotes

We are all trying to balance our careers and children and give as much of ourselves and our time to them. You work and have a husband, and projects, and friends. It is a balancing act.

On a piece of prose, you have to work at least six hours a day. I don't know how you can do that and teach and raise a kid and paint the house.

You can't do it all. You get many requests all the time, but I still have to focus on football, still have to live my life a little bit. But there are definitely times during the week when you want to take time out.

I would recommend that every woman who intends to take on a maid should do every bit of her own work first. When she knows exactly the time it takes, the hard work, the weariness it entails, then she can begin with intelligence to plan what her maid can do.

I've tried my very best to keep all the balls in the air and be home.

My message to the ladies would be, you can do all of the things, but not all of them at the same time.

Life's a balancing act. You have multiple roles and goals, and you can do it all - just not all at once.

I am glad that I am able to do everything. It's tough because you have to look after the house, family, children, acting, dance, and production.

When people are getting on me for being at a Ranger game at 7 o'clock at night, they don't see what I've done between yoga, Pilates, workout, thrown, ran, done all my work by 5 o'clock, ate, and then I went to the game. Nobody is seeing that. Nobody is commenting on that.

My personal challenge is always balance. My life has a lot of compartments to it, and I care about each of them deeply. So I wake up each day thinking, 'How am I going to balance today?'

You know the adage, when you want something done, ask a busy person. It's so true. Having kids taught me to prioritize, delegate, and accept life's imperfections. I also learned the all-important skill of jumping off the train: taking breaks in career and passion pursuits to tend to the things that last.

You can have it all, but you can't do it all.

I stay balanced by remembering to prioritize. What is most important should never be railroaded by the "tyranny of the urgent." My relationship with God, my devotion to my husband, my responsibilities to my children, loving others, and, of course, remaining grateful for the blessings that I have. Like getting to do what I love for a living. And trust me, I am.

I personally think it would be a very liberating thing for women to allow themselves to understand that having it all incorporates sacrifice. It does mean that you can't be everywhere all the time. It does mean that your friends are not going to get all of you.

Fathers have skills that they never use at home. You run a landscaping business and you can't dress and feed a four-year-old? Take it on!

I've found that motherhood helps you figure out what absolutely needs to be done and what doesn't. You just learn to do everything quicker and quicker - your style and your makeup gets more refined and generally easier.

Being married, I've got so many things to do that I am the last to do things for myself. Taking care of my body has been difficult, but I am doing the best that I can.

Many women cut back what had to be done at home by redefining what the house, the marriage and, sometimes, what the child needs. One woman described a fairly common pattern: I do my half. I do half of his half, and the rest doesn't get done.

I think at the end of the day you have to find a balance with what's really important.

At home, I'm lucky if I can write three or four hours before the phone starts ringing and the kids want to go to soccer.

Women are smarter by basic instinct and by what we have to do to multitask at home and at work. My mother did that 50 years ago, but it wasn't called multitasking or stress back then. She had a job, two kids and the meals to make with no cook or maid. My father would come home every day and expect lunch. He was a nice guy, but he was clueless!

Over the last couple of years, I've really worked toward balancing my life out more, having a little bit more time with friends, family and my boyfriend. There was a period of time when they were way down the list. It was all about music and touring and if everything fell by the wayside, so be it.

I am not Superwoman. The reality of my daily life is that I'm juggling a lot of balls in the air trying to be a good wife and mother, trying to be the prime-ministerial consort at home and abroad, barrister and charity worker, and sometimes one of the balls gets dropped.

Somebody said the key to life is to work hard, play hard, rest hard, and I've pretty much adopted that.

Women run the small country called Home, millions of us do it in our spare time, and no one who doesn't run that small country really knows what it feels like in the dead of night when task lists jitter like tickertape through your seething brain.