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Emma Thompson Quotes | Quotes said by Emma Thompson

  • Emma Thompson Quote #1

    (Golden Globe acceptance speech in the style of Jane Austen's letters):

    Four A.M. Having just returned from an evening at the Golden Spheres, which despite the inconveniences of heat, noise and overcrowding, was not without its pleasures. Thankfully, there were no dogs and no children. The gowns were middling. There was a good deal of shouting and behavior verging on the profligate, however, people were very free with their compliments and I made several new acquaintances. Miss Lindsay Doran, of Mirage, wherever that might be, who is largely responsible for my presence here, an enchanting companion about whom too much good cannot be said. Mr. Ang Lee, of foreign extraction, who most unexpectedly apppeared to understand me better than I undersand myself. Mr. James Schamus, a copiously erudite gentleman, and Miss Kate Winslet, beautiful in both countenance and spirit. Mr. Pat Doyle, a composer and a Scot, who displayed the kind of wild behavior one has lernt to expect from that race. Mr. Mark Canton, an energetic person with a ready smile who, as I understand it, owes me a vast deal of money. Miss Lisa Henson -- a lovely girl, and Mr. Gareth Wigan -- a lovely boy. I attempted to converse with Mr. Sydney Pollack, but his charms and wisdom are so generally pleasing that it proved impossible to get within ten feet of him. The room was full of interesting activitiy until eleven P.M. when it emptied rather suddenly. The lateness of the hour is due therefore not to the dance, but to the waiting, in a long line for horseless vehicles of unconscionable size. The modern world has clearly done nothing for transport.

    P.S. Managed to avoid the hoyden Emily Tomkins who has purloined my creation and added things of her own. Nefarious creature.

    With gratitude and apologies to Miss Austen, thank you.


  • Emma Thompson Quote #2

    (On period costume posture coaching:)

    We all stand about like parboiled spaghetti being straightened out.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #3

    Sense and Sensibility signs litter Devon -- arrows with S & S on. Whenever Ang [Lee] sees a B & B sign he thinks it's for another movie.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #4

    [Over breakfast] We discussed the 'novelisation' question. This is where the studio pay someone to novelise my script and sell it as Sense and Sensibility. I've said if this happens I will hang myself. Revolting notion. Beyond revolting.

    Lindsay [Doran] said that the executive she had discussed it with had said 'as a human being I agree with you -- but ...' I laughed until my porridge was cool enough to swallow.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #5

    And it's absolutely true that male sexual behaviour and female responses to male demands change a lot when they start communicating - and the levels of the communication that I've seen on the ground in very, very poor areas are so high and I think why don't we have that here?

  • Emma Thompson Quote #6

    Any problem, big or small, within a family, always seems to start with bad communication. Someone isn't listening.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #7

    Can he love her? Can the soul really be satisfied with such polite affections? To love is to burn - to be on fire, like Juliet or Guinevere or Eloise...

  • Emma Thompson Quote #8

    Difficult for actors to extemporise in nineteenth-century English. Except for Robert Hardy and Elizabeth Spriggs, who speak that way anyway.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #9

    Edward finds Elinor crying for her dead father, offers her his handkerchief and their love story commences. Ang [Lee] very anxious that we think about what we want to do. I'm very anxious not to do anything and certainly not to think about it.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #10

    Families are weird. You'd think that people who live and eat and sleep in the same place would always have a lot in common. But sometimes they don't have anything in common AT ALL. You can have a brother who really likes ballet and a sister who thinks it's girlie. You could probably have Darth Vader and Mickey Mouse in the same family; they're that weird.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #11

    Got up this morning and could not find my glasses. Finally had to seek assistance. Kate [Winslet] found them inside a flower arrangement.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #12

    Horror. I can't manage it. I become--well--horrified. Self-help books have a similar effect.

    When asked, Any literary genre you simply can't be bothered with? - (By the Book: Writers on Literature and the Literary Life from the NYT Book Review, by Pamela Paul)

  • Emma Thompson Quote #13

    Hugh Laurie (playing Mr. Palmer) felt the line 'Don't palm all your abuses [of language upon me]' was possibly too rude. 'It's in the book,' I said. He didn't hit me.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #14

    I ask Laurie if it's possible to get trained fish. Lindsay says this is how we know I've never produced a movie.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #15

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

  • Emma Thompson Quote #16

    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.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #17

    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.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #18

    I seem finally to have stopped worrying about Elinor, and age. She seems now to be perfectly normal -- about twenty-five, a witty control freak. I like her but I can see how she would drive you mad. She's just the sort of person you'd want to get drunk, just to make her giggling and silly.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #19

    I think books are like people, in the sense that they'll turn up in your life when you most need them.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #20

    I was brought up by very witty people who were dealing with quite difficult things: disease and death... I was brought up by people who tended to giggle at funerals.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #21

    If you've got to my age, you've probably had your heart broken many times. So it's not that difficult to unpack a bit of grief from some little corner of your heart and cry over it.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #22

    Indeed - judicious, consistent parenting is a dream of mine. No judgements, learning space and listening carefully are my goals.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #23

    It is remarkable how many misconceptions there are here about life in the developing world and I think that that knowledge gap has done a lot to contribute to the imbalance quite frankly.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #24

    Jane reminds us that God is in his heaven, the monarch on his throne and the pelvis firmly beneath the ribcage. Apparently rock and roll liberated the pelvis and it hasn't been the same since.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #25

    Kissing Hugh was lovely. Glad I invented it. Can't rely on Austen for a snog, that's for sure.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #26

    Lindsay [Doran] goes round the table and introduces everyone -- making it clear that I am present in the capacity of writer rather than actress, therefore no one has to be too nice to me.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #27

    My godfather sad that story was abut taking the chaotic jigsaw of life, making it into a picture and putting a frame around it so that we could look at it, have control over it. Story and art are the humanizing elements of us.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #28

    Our first point of discussion is the hunt. (...) My idea is to start the film with an image of the vixen locked out of her lair which has been plugged up. Her terror as she's pursued across the country. This is a big deal. It means training a fox from birth or dressing up a dog to look like a fox. Or hiring David Attenbrorough, who probably knows a few foxes well enough to ask a favour.

  • Emma Thompson Quote #29

    Paparazzi arrived for Hugh [Grant]. We had to stand under a tree and smile for them.
    Photographer: 'Hugh, could you look less -- um --'
    Hugh: 'Pained?

  • Emma Thompson Quote #30

    Press conference [on the movie Carrington] yielded the usual crop of daftness. I've been asked if I related personally to Carrington's tortured relationship with sex and replied that no, not really, I'd had a very pleasant time since I was fifteen. This elicited very disapproving copy from the Brits ... No wonder people think we don't have sex in England.

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