Top 60 Judi Dench Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “We get up in the morning. We do our best. Nothing else matters.”

— Judi Dench

2. “One of the benefits of being a mature well-educated woman is that you’re not afraid of expletives. And you have no fear to put a fool in his place. That’s the power of language and experience. You can learn a lot from Shakespeare.”

— Judi Dench

3. “Most things don’t work out as expected, but what happens instead often turns out to be the good stuff.”

— Judi Dench

4. “I think you should take your job seriously, but not yourself – that is the best combination.”

— Judi Dench

5. “The only real failure is the failure to try.”

— Judi Dench

6. “Never fall out of love with life.”

— Judi Dench

7. “I would hate people to think bossy is all I can do.”

— Judi Dench

8. “I’ve got what my ma had, macular degeneration, which you get when you get old.”

— Judi Dench

9. “There is no past that we can bring back by longing for it.”

— Judi Dench

10. “It takes courage to recognize the real as opposed to the convenient.”

— Judi Dench

11. “I need to learn every day.”

— Judi Dench

12. “When we are together, there is nothing we cannot achieve’, which is something Michael used to say.”

— Judi Dench

13. “There’s nothing good about being my age.”

— Judi Dench

14. “Children have become disengaged from nature and we need to reintroduce them to the pleasure that it brings. If we do that they will care for it. Through the simple act of planting a tree we can open their eyes to nature’s beauty.”

— Judi Dench

15. “It is not good to cross the bridge before you get to it.”

— Judi Dench

16. “I have a completely new knee. It’s brilliant. I am not feeling my age at all. I feel about 43, a willowy blonde 43 years old with long legs.”

— Judi Dench

17. “I like to push myself beyond the limit every now and again.”

— Judi Dench

18. “Anything that we can do to improve the lives of elderly people is welcome so far as I am concerned.”

— Judi Dench

19. “I am so thrilled to be nominated for something I loved working on every single day.”

— Judi Dench

20. “It was good to learn so early. They’re not going to be kind to you. You have to do it and get on, and then gulp down and get better.”

— Judi Dench

21. “Every experience that you experience yourself you use, because that’s our craft.”

— Judi Dench

22. “I get sillier as I get older, so I don’t know what wisdom means. I can only pass on something that I’ve been acquainted with and let whomever it is pick the bones out of it.”

— Judi Dench

23. “Having a daughter and a grandson, I certainly could relate to the fact that this child, who you simply dote on, being taken away from you at an early age, and every single kind of emotion you would have to go through.”

— Judi Dench

24. “I’ve figured out what to do so far, but it’s always the next thing you come to where the man with the bucket of ice cold water is waiting – whoosh! in your face. That’s why you work with directors who know what to tell you to do.”

— Judi Dench

25. “Everything, every part that you approach has to be somehow rooted in yourself. You have to somehow root everything so that it’s not just words coming out of you.”

— Judi Dench

26. “Work certainly does help fill a void.”

— Judi Dench

27. “I think you’ve got to have your feet planted firmly on the ground, especially in this business, and you must not believe things that are said or written about you, because everything gets out of proportion one way or the other.”

— Judi Dench

28. “I work out the other bits, too, but I need to know what I look like, very early on. And then it’s like a template; I’ll fill that person out. If I get that out of the way, then I’m all right.”

— Judi Dench

29. “The more I do, the more frightened I get. But that is essential. Otherwise why would I go on doing it?”

— Judi Dench

30. “I don’t really want to retire. I intend to go on working as long as I can because I still have a huge amount of energy.”

— Judi Dench

31. “I love being part of a company, and telling a story.”

— Judi Dench

Featured in: Quotes About Stories

32. “There are very few things that surprise me.”

— Judi Dench

33. “I don’t think anybody can be told how to act. I think you can give advice. But you have to find your own way through it.”

— Judi Dench

34. “Seriously, though, I think I never ceased to be grateful of the fact that I am able to do a job that I really love – I never got over that.”

— Judi Dench

35. “I don’t like reading scripts very much. I like it better for someone to just explain to me what it is about this story.”

— Judi Dench

Featured in: Reading Quotes, Quotes About Stories

36. “I wanted to be a set designer when I was young.”

— Judi Dench

37. “I started off as a theatre designer, and by some extraordinary circumstance I saw something in Stratford-upon-Avon, and realized that that’s the kind of design I want, but also that that’s the kind of designer I’ll never be.”

— Judi Dench

38. “I’ve always loved painting, although I never show anyone what I’ve done. Mainly because I don’t do it well. But it’s like a form of visual diary for me. A way of fixing things in my mind.”

— Judi Dench

39. “I trained as a designer, so I’m always terribly keen about what I’m going to look like.”

— Judi Dench

40. “Actually, what I miss are people corpsing on stage.”

— Judi Dench

41. “Don’t think I am going to let Bob Hoskins take all his clothes off and me not take a look? I just had a quick look up and down, like you would.”

— Judi Dench

42. “I just feel incredibly lucky to be employed when there are so many actors and actresses who are not employed. That’s why, you know, I sometimes feel desperate, in case I’m not going to be cast again.”

— Judi Dench

43. “I don’t think that care homes are all rotten old places that ought to be shut down.”

— Judi Dench

44. “I was in Yorkshire. We were a family of five and I used to be sent sometimes to get the rations for the week and was easily able to carry them back. It was like one egg and a tiny bit of tea.”

— Judi Dench

45. “I felt quite a responsibility when I played Elizabeth I but nobody here remembers her! And then I felt a responsibility when I played Queen Victoria but not many people remember her.”

— Judi Dench

46. “In the theatre you can change things ever so slightly; it’s an organic thing. Whereas in film you only have that chance on the day, and you have no control over it at all.”

— Judi Dench

47. “Sometimes nudity is gratuitous. We just live in a society where everything goes.”

— Judi Dench

48. “I played Iris Murdoch, who had not long died, and I felt the responsibility very heavy on my shoulders.”

— Judi Dench

49. “I would like to work with Jack Nicholson, before it’s too late.”

— Judi Dench

50. “This is just the loveliest news. I’m so happy for everybody involved, and so proud to have been part of the wonderful experience that Philomena has been.”

— Judi Dench