Top 50 Dawn French Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Turning 50 can be difficult, sometimes dangerous, for women. The danger is in that blip that can come from the fact that you become invisible, and if you’re not careful and don’t embrace that, it can trip you up and you lose confidence.”

— Dawn French

2. “I’ll always be a fat girl and I am happy with that.”

— Dawn French

3. “I’ve chosen to stay in a jolly place for most of my life, and that is a lot of who I am.”

— Dawn French

4. “I am a rubbish flirt.”

— Dawn French

5. “I never do any television without chocolate. That’s my motto and I live by it. Quite often I write the scripts and I make sure there are chocolate scenes. Actually I’m a bit of a chocolate tart and will eat anything. It’s amazing I’m so slim.”

— Dawn French

6. “Emos don’t dance much to our music. They actually hate snow patrol and Girls allowed. How could anyone hate them? I haven’t got any punk or metal stuff they would like but actually, when they’d had some cider they were dancing along happily to ‘Mamma Mia’ with us, no probs. Even though they’re Emos, they are still like human.”

— Dawn French

7. “People need to learn to take everyone as they are.”

— Dawn French

8. “Divorce is not easy, but if you genuinely put your kids first, that dictates the civility you should show each other. What example are you otherwise?”

— Dawn French

9. “What was I thinking? Fact is I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t want to think. I wanted to feel.”

— Dawn French

10. “It was my father who taught me to value myself...”

— Dawn French

11. “I’m known among my friends for saying things I probably shouldn’t sometimes, but I have to get things out in the air.”

— Dawn French

12. “I’d like to play a horse, many people think I already have. Either end of the horse would be fine.”

— Dawn French

13. “My daughter couldn’t care less about me being famous. She finds it revolting and, like a lot of teenagers, is virtually allergic to me. That started at 12 and hasn’t gone anywhere yet.”

— Dawn French

14. “My best friend is the most important girl, outside of family, to me. I met her when I went to college and we bonded immediately. I’d do anything for her at any time. We phone each other every day.”

— Dawn French

15. “I don’t know what the future holds, but I have to be confident about it. It’s just the way I am.”

— Dawn French

16. “It was my father who taught me to value myself. He told me that I was uncommonly beautiful and that I was the most precious thing in his life.”

— Dawn French

17. “If I had been around when Rubens was painting, I would have been revered as a fabulous model. Kate Moss? Well, she would have been the paintbrush.”

— Dawn French

18. “Im constantly astounded by how amazing women are. And as we go through all these different stages of life as long as you share them with others and say, Well, this is bloody weird, you can get through everything.”

— Dawn French

19. “I’m not a big drinking person and hardly ever have alcohol. Perhaps it’s not sweet enough for my sweet tooth.”

— Dawn French

20. “I am not, I repeat, NOT a lesbian – even though I’d like to be one when I grow up.”

— Dawn French

21. “I have had the unfortunate experience of having someone write an unauthorised biography of me. Half of it is lies and the other half is badly written. My feeling is that if I’m going to write my life story, I ought to have my life first.”

— Dawn French

22. “Other than my memory being a bit woolly and my knees being a bit creaky, I don’t really think there’s anything I can’t do.”

— Dawn French

23. “Funny how women are ashamed of their inner fairy whereas men are forever proudly displaying their inner cowboy or fireman.”

— Dawn French

24. “Why would I worry about getting older – what’s to moan about?”

— Dawn French

25. “Any people whose lives are about the way they look, whether it’s fat or thin, are in a dangerous area.”

— Dawn French

26. “Evolving into a middle-aged person is quite interesting if we can understand what it means. I would like to think it meant being a bit sure of what I want.”

— Dawn French

27. “I love it when somebody makes me laugh – it’s what attracts me to people.”

— Dawn French

28. “The best way to lose weight is to put the handle of the fridge two inches from the ground.”

— Dawn French

29. “In actual life I am a grumpy old bag.”

— Dawn French

30. “The person I have admired the most in comedy terms would be Eric Morecambe, who is my total hero.”

— Dawn French

31. “For me, whatever age or size I’ve been, I have rather liked myself. The shell is not the thing at all.”

— Dawn French

32. “Young people need their own private places which mothers don’t belong to, even if they want mother all around the edge of that.”

— Dawn French

33. “I keep my own personality in a cupboard under the stairs at home so that no one else can see it or nick it.”

— Dawn French

34. “When I wrote ‘Dear Fatty,’ I realised that sitting and writing alone is an absolute joy.”

— Dawn French

35. “I know what it’s like to struggle for cash. When I went to drama school, I worked as a chambermaid to make ends meet.”

— Dawn French

36. “It was fantastic to work in Cornwall partly because my family live there so I was able to do lots of visiting and eat lots of cake. They live all over Cornwall and all over Devon.”

— Dawn French

37. “I’ve always loved kissing. We all do, don’t we?”

— Dawn French

38. “That’s the awful thing about dating. Tight underwear. We would all like to be in a big bra and pants and when you are in a secure relationship you can do that.”

— Dawn French

39. “I do think you are supposed to go through wars with your child because otherwise the tearing apart that has to happen when they go off to lead their own life would be unbearable.”

— Dawn French

40. “Why would anyone want to be called a size zero or even aspire to being a zero? I don’t even understand the thinking behind it, let alone the practicalities. What is all that about?”

— Dawn French

41. “My approach to parenting is that everything is open – everything. I’m not very good at covert, or subtle, and I’ve had to learn timing. I do blunder in a bit.”

— Dawn French

42. “That’s the weird thing about not being married – you can’t get regular kissing; you can’t be guaranteed of it, and that’s a great shame.”

— Dawn French

43. “I’ve often said the most difficult things I have to say to people through humour. I can very quickly put someone in their place with it. But we all walk away unscathed because there’s been some funnies around it, and I’ll usually make sure that it comes back at me.”

— Dawn French

44. “I want to do something where I play Judi Dench’s younger sister or daughter.”

— Dawn French

45. “I haven’t really ever had to audition for anything.”

— Dawn French

46. “The only time I did not know how to be, physically, was when I lost a lot of weight. That was the only time I didn’t understand my body.”

— Dawn French

47. “I don’t read novels whilst I’m writing one; I just haven’t got a wide enough brain to concentrate on incoming and outgoing in the same time zone.”

— Dawn French

Featured in: Reading Quotes

48. “Theatre outings are my favourite thing to spend money on. The most influential play I saw was Bent, which starred Ian McKellen. And I loved the original performance of The Rocky Horror Show, with Richard OBrien and Tim Curry at the Royal Court, when I was about 15.”

— Dawn French

49. “I am a kid in the dressing-up box at heart.”

— Dawn French

50. “I have turned away from the thought of writing fiction in the past through what I suppose is, actually, fear. The direct, raw invitation for the reader to come in and explore my imagination is fairly scary for me so I have busied myself with so much else.”

— Dawn French