Quotes from Emma Thompson


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During an election, it's like they're doing my job: they're going around banging the drum for their party and selling their movie. You know, it's the same thing.


One is a child when one has a child. No one says, 'You will never be the same again.' Which is the truth! And we're all supposed to be happy all the time. What is that about?


A lot of people in my world - in the acting world - have either lost friends to Aids or live with HIV because its origin in our culture, in New York for instance, was in the gay community.


Sometimes I get to put on posh frocks and be Madam Glamour, the vendor of my wares. My lovely friend Kath, a stylist, puts me into things I'd never dream of. But my real life is very different. It's very, very home-based - an intense domestic life, that's the core of everything.


I have to write for everyone. What really fascinates me is how you make films or make stories that can genuinely be shared by different groups.


Children don't need much advice but they really do need to be listened to and not just with half an ear.


But when I lose my temper, I find it difficult to forgive myself. I feel I've failed. I can be calm in a crisis, in the face of death or things that hurt badly. I don't get hysterical, which may be masochistic of me.


The fact is that young people are going to have sex whether you like it or not.


I don't have technique because I never learnt any.


The only way you can have it all is by delegating all the running of the home to other people - which I don't ever want to do... So you do it yourself, and it takes time and energy and effort. And if you give it the time, it's profoundly enjoyable.


Tell him I mind having to look pretty, that's what I mind, because it is so much more of an effort.


My appearance has changed a lot over the years, but it has far more to do with how I feel about being a woman.


Its unfortunate and I really wish I wouldn't have to say this, but I really like human beings who have suffered. They're kinder.


You can't be a great mum and work the whole time necessarily; those two things aren't ideal. We have an awful lot to work on and to debate about in relation to our working lives, because it isn't working for a lot of people, particularly for a lot of women.


The trouble is it's very difficult to pin-point the most important thing because Aids affects everyone in different levels of society, differently and you have to respond to it differently.


If you don't want women to do whatever they need to do then you must provide them with food, you must provide them with shelter and their basic human rights.


I have had lots of friends who've been affected by Aids and a very good friend of mine, Oscar Moore, died of Aids and I was with him in his last year quite a bit. And of course he was a man living in a very rich culture with a wealthy family who was able to afford health care.


I don't mean being famous is a perk, because one knows that it's not necessarily a perk, but there are certain perks to being well-known and respected in one's field. Public perks. Like, I don't know, general friendliness and willingness to please, just to point out two.


I do think that despite my best efforts to resist it, I am now a grown-up. It's due to lots of very difficult decisions that you make over a long period of time - about motherhood, wifehood, and work, and all the things that one has to make decisions about.


When husbands and fathers leave, their wives and daughters tend to value themselves less as a result.