I always want to do the most different thing I can think of next

"I think you should take your job seriously, but not yourself - that is the best combination."

"I had no film career until 'Mrs Brown', which Harvey Weinstein oversaw. He gave a lunch for me at the time and I told him I had his name tattooed on my bum. I hadn't, I had my make-up lady design something that I showed him. He's never forgotten it."

"I've considered [plastic surgery], but I'm too old now. Every time I go to America I wonder if there is some process where it could all be sucked out and I could be out of there in time for dinner, but I'm frightened it would all drop off under the anaesthetic."

"Sometimes nudity is gratuitous. We just live in a society where everything goes."

"There are very few things that surprise me."

"National treasure? I hate that. Too dusty, too in a cupboard, too behind glass, too staid. I don't want to be thought of as recognisable - I always want to do the most different thing I can think of next. On stage I am not trying to be myself, I'm trying to be someone else, the more unlike me the better. I remember someone who saw me in Juno and the Paycock said I was completely unrecognisable. How marvellous."

"I'm very conscious that I'm in the minority in that I love what I do. How big is the number of people who are running to work to do a job that they like? And how lucky to be employed at it - how incredibly lucky."

Dame Judi Dench is 80 years old today. We can merely hope to walk in her shadow.