I had a lot of learning on my feet.

I'm not very good with rap and things like that.

I'm beginning to think that I like the behind-the-scenes work as much as I do in front of the camera as I get a little bit older.

I didn't know other children from divorced families, and I was a bit of a lost soul for a while. Then suddenly, I was performing. And it gave me an identity.

I had no education whatsoever, and my mother said, 'Oh, you'll get a much better education in life.' I did to some extent, though I always wish I could have tried it.

The loveliest roles, for me, have a growth arc - a beginning, a middle, and an end - and I'm always grateful when I can find one of those emotional journeys.

'Simeon's Gift' is really - it's about a musician who - in the Middle Ages, who goes out to find his muse.

I think it's the essence of any film and any stage production - any work where you do work with other people - of course collaboration is hugely important. One does, for awhile, become family.

When you are traveling in vaudeville, you experience so many different kinds of audiences, depending on what time of the week it is, how long the pubs have been open, and things like that.

I was a very sad little girl.

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 the things that helped me be a more rounded human being.

I did a lot of touring in my youth, and I learnt very quickly that giving is what it's all about. It's about the gift of making an audience feel great and forget their cares, if only for a few hours.

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

Let me put it this way: I can sing a hell of an 'Old Man River,' way down in the bass.

Some of my own books are being developed - one as a Broadway musical.

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.

Every time I go out to perform, believe me. You never lose that fear of, 'I hope I do it right. I hope I don't fall flat on my face. I hope this will be good for them.'

My parents were in Vaudeville, in musical. And I would tour with them and had a couple of wonderfully lucky breaks in England.

Who would have thought that a story about a professor of phonetics would result in it being probably one of the great shows ever for musical theatre? It's a seemingly odd subject.

I think I'm just proudest to be the lady who was asked to play Mary Poppins. She's such a wonderful character, and there's so much tremendous talent out there. So I feel very lucky to be the one who got to play her.

I was working from a very early age.

I really feel very blessed, and I don't forget it, either; there's an awful lot of wonderful talent in this world, and I just seem to be in the right place at the right time.

Touring itself - and I was very young, and a lot of it I did by myself - it's lonely, but it does give you some kind of spine, I think. It does give you some kind of grit.

My voice needed oiling, and then it took off.

If you're not educated to enjoy the arts, if you're not taken to a concert, or you don't hear something beautiful, you don't know what you're missing.

You'd think, of course, it's about the melody - that's a given. But really, I'm no good at singing a song unless it has a good lyric.

I did 'My Fair Lady' for almost 3 1/2 years, eight performances a week. It was a marathon.

A lot of films seem to go to the lowest common denominator.

There is one thing I should say, and it's important: Young Broadway singers and anybody who is an orator of any kind - lawyers who have to speak in court or pastors or anyone who has a lot of stress on their vocal cords: You should do the maintenance. You should do whatever it takes to feel fresh and good.

I miss singing with an orchestra because that's the most uplifting thing that I ever knew. It is just such a fabulous feeling.

Actually, what I did, because I couldn't make sense of it, and I have to have lyrics that make sense, I decided the best way to sing 'I Have Confidence' was to go completely nuts with panic and fear.

There's nothing like the joy of the arts, and promoting the arts early in children is going to give them such a start in life in a way.

I was always told I was not pretty enough.

I like - I actually love classical music very much.

I'm the lucky lady that was asked to be in those wonderful iconic pieces.

In my life, it would probably be giving birth to my daughter. That probably is the most, the thing that moved me the most, was the most memorable, the most wonderful, the most miraculous. I think a lot of women would probably feel that way, too.

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

When I did 'The Sound of Music' and 'Mary Poppins' and 'The Americanization of Emily,' all three were in the can and had not yet been released. So I was driving around having a fine time learning about how to make movies and enjoying myself enormously, and then they were released, and it was quite an assault, in a way.

My mum gave me pretty good genes in that department. She had gorgeous skin. That good English complexion. She never seemed to have a blemish that I knew of.

Almost every morning when I go to the studio to work, I discover a fresh rose in the bud vase on my dressing table... one living and vital thing in a dusty arena of powder and tissue and matches and greasepaint.

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

Our first visit to the Creature Shop is one of the days I will never, ever forget. There was just so much to see and admire and be gobsmacked by.

Broadway is a tough, tough arena for singing.

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 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'm just honored that some of my little contributions I've written with my daughter are doing well.

In my early years, I was much too ignorant and didn't realize how desperately important it all is, how really important the lyrics are. And for me as a singer, I am a lady who takes the lyrics first.

How dare one act like a diva when you have a lot of work to do and you need to find your disciplines and so on?

The arts need funding.

You can't bring the arts too soon to kids.