Quotes by Emma Thompson

I don’t think people understand that being poor means you have to work from dawn until dusk just to survive through the day. I think there’s some notion that poor people lie about all day not doing anything.

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.

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.

We need men and women to sit down and talk to each other about sex honestly and openly. That would help us fight Aids so immediately. But our lack of communication is hugely problematic.

A lot of very beautiful women can be a pain because all they’re thinking about is how they look.

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?

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.

We’ve got people looking at our seamy side and our sad side a lot of the time because that’s easier. It’s much more difficult to make a film about happiness with lots of jokes in it.

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

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.