June Brown

Sometimes I wonder if I loved anybody, and yet I think of all the tears I shed and the heartache. It was all such a waste of time.

I can talk through anything. I even talked while I was having my tonsils removed in Ardentinny when I was in the ATS.

Many gays have a good sense of humour and they like the wit I hopefully put into my performances.

All the women in 'Coronation Street' and 'Brookside,' they are all so funny. A lot of women bore me, but I love the strong women in soaps.

I'm always doing that, going off at a tangent.

No, I wouldn't vote Labour, dear, if you paid me. I vote Conservative.

My life is just - logistics - fitting everything in.

Don't like makeup. I don't use it much unless I go out - I think it makes you look older.

You've always got to have something to say, haven't you? For an interview. Something to talk about.

Sometimes I'll feel down and realise it's because of a depressing plot.

Characters can get under your skin when you play them for a long time.

I didn't know much about the East End and I didn't go trudging round to research it - couldn't be bothered with all that - but my grandmother was a cockney so I used her voice for Dot. I don't think it sounded very real at the beginning.

A little girl once wrote to me saying she was coming to live with me - because Dot always stuck up for her son.

I was always in love, constantly.

I say sorry for everything.

It is dangerous to have a favourite word.

I don't like spending money.

Turmeric is good for the brain.

I would be happy if I were Jesus. I'd like to fix everyone else's problems more than my own.

I can't say my life has been dominated by tragedy. I refuse to accept that. I've had less than some, more than others.

I could have played Dot as a very dreary woman with a list of illnesses, but I played her with an edge, so it was funny.

You've got to laugh in the face of disappointment.

I don't want to be a burden to anyone.

I would not like to go into a care home. That's my worst fear. I like my own home and would like to die here.

I trust that I will die well.

I'm absolutely pedantic about language; it must go back to my schools.

I was not a witty girl.

At 16 I was very interested in palmistry. The fate line on my right palm broke into two parts that ran for a quarter of an inch on parallel tracks. I used to look at it and wonder, 'What will happen?'

I think I can do things better than other people, which is dreadful.

I am very bossy.

My views are politically incorrect. Such as why we allow children to say what they think. It's not how to bring up children. And now people give their children choices, like what they want to eat. Kids can't deal with choices.

My thirties were ruined by being pregnant. I loved my babies but I had been quite successful before I had them, playing Lady Macbeth and Hedda Gabler, one of my favourite roles.

I felt an intense loneliness after my sister died. I was seven at the time, she was eight, and I realised after her death that she accepted me for who I was.

I was having the worst year of my life before the offer from 'EastEnders' came through. I was 58, my kids were grown up, and I had no money and few offers.

I was a procrastinator and a bookworm but I passed all my School Certificate exams, the equivalent of O-levels; I got three distinctions, three honours and three good passes.

My handwriting was so good I won a prize, a cardboard cut-out of a farmyard; my mother threw it away when we moved.

In 1930, when I was three and my sister was four, my father sent us to Miss Tracy's, a little 'dame's school' in Ipswich. I do remember playing with an abacus. He took us away after a term because he thought we weren't learning anything.

There are some people who the same things happen to them again and again. They never learn.

I've had tragedy in my life, but I think that gives me a depth that I can bring to my work. I'd like to see more older women on TV because they can bring that life experience and emotion to a performance.

I'm not bragging but I used to be rather beautiful, with lovely legs, and people would always ask me to dance. But suddenly people didn't take any notice of me any more. I was at a party in my 50s and was forced to dance with a chair because nobody wanted to dance with me.

Old people are considered worthless fuddy-duddies and often overlooked, which makes them sink into loneliness. I noticed it as soon as I started to age.

The elderly in Britain aren't really given enough respect.

I don't believe anything is going to happen until it does, until you see your name on a paper or it actually happens and you have something in your hand.

I used to take the children to work with me.

I was quite a clever child, I don't know what happened later on.

I find when I get on set that my energy comes.

When you're acting you are in love with someone, it's very hard not to think you are.

I'm a perfectionist - but as someone once said, 'What else is there to be?'

I didn't want my book to be soapy - maybe it's my vanity but I think I can write better than that.

I wasn't a natural mother.