The thrill of being in front of a camera remains exactly the same.

If the director says you can do better, particularly in a love scene, then it is rather embarrassing.

Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.

Singing has never been particularly easy for me.

I play with my grandchildren. I tend to my garden, which I love. Of course, I love to read, and family is really what it’s all about.

My sense of the family history is somewhat sketchy, because my mother kept a great deal to herself.

Behaving like a princess is work. It’s not just about looking beautiful or wearing a crown. It’s more about how you are inside.

I don’t want to be thought of as wholesome.

On the whole, I think women wear too much and are to fussy. You can’t see the person for all the clutter.

I am told that the first comprehensible word I uttered as a child was ‘home.’

I think every young girl at some point in her early life wonders what it’s like to be a princess. They like the idea of dressing up and the fun of it.

I hate the word wholesome.

I’ve got a good right hook.

I would be a fool to deny my own abilities.

Sometimes opportunities float right past your nose. Work hard, apply yourself, and be ready. When an opportunity comes you can grab it.

I was lucky enough to be the lady that was asked to be Maria in the Sound Of Music, and that film was fortunate enough to be huge hit. The same with Mary Poppins. I...

I am an optimistic lady.

Because of the Thames I have always loved inland waterways – water in general, water sounds – there’s music in water. Brooks babbling, fountains splashing. Weirs, waterfalls; tumbling, gushing.

Sometimes I’m so sweet even I can’t stand it.

I am very proud to be British. I’m very conscious of carrying my country with me wherever I go. I feel I need to represent it well.

I am a liberated woman. And I do believe if a woman does equal work she should be paid equal money. But personally I am feminine and I do like male authority to lean on.

I was raised never to carp about things and never to moan, because in vaudeville, which is my background, you just got on with it through all kinds of adversities.

All love shifts and changes. I don’t know if you can be wholeheartedly in love all the time.

Garry Marshall is a joy. I feel so utterly safe in his hands.

As a rule, my focus is on classical music, but I love jazz. I love everything, actually.

I adored my birth father and constantly worried that I was being disloyal to him and his schoolteacher roots if I spent too much time performing and enjoying it.

Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly.

I was named after my two grandmothers – Julia Elizabeth.

I have always wished I could learn to be a potter. I love collecting ceramics; it would be so fulfilling to create something lovely.

I think that the best way to explain that is that my mother gave me all the color and character and flare and liveliness, and my father gave me all the sanity and nature and...

All careers go up and down like friendships, like marriages, like anything else, and you can’t bat a thousand all the time.

I thought it was all a flash in the pan. It wasn’t until Broadway came along that I felt I had really made it.

Broadway is a tough, tough arena for singing.

A lot of my life happened in great, wonderful bursts of good fortune, and then I would race to be worthy of it.

I love singing, and I came to absolutely adore it in the later part of my career.

I have been called a nun with a switchblade where my privacy is concerned. I think there’s a point where one says, that’s for family, that’s for me.

And I think as long as a song has beautiful lyrics, I’m so happy.

I don’t think today’s younger audience… would even know what 1920s musicals were like.

I don’t think I have the image that say, Judy Garland has, or Bette Davis.