Quotes from Judi Dench movies and TV shows

Evelyn: Nothing here has worked out quite as I expected.
Muriel: Most things don't. But sometimes what happens instead is the good stuff.

Evelyn: We dunk biscuits into it.
Sunaina's Brother: Dunk?
Evelyn: Means lowering the biscuit into the tea and letting it soak in there and trying to calculate the exact moment before the biscuit dissolves, when you whip it up into your mouth and enjoy the blissful union of biscuits and tea combined. It's more relaxing than it sounds.

M: Who the hell do they think they are? I report to the Prime Minister, and even he is smart enough not to ask me what we do. Have you ever seen such a bunch of self-righteous, arse-covering prigs? They don't care what we do, they care what we get photographed doing!
And how could Bond be so stupid?! I give him 00 status and he celebrates by shooting up an embassy! Is the man deranged? And where the hell is he? In the old days, if an agent did something that embarrassing, he'd have the good sense to defect. Christ, I miss the Cold War.

M: How the hell did you find out where I lived?
James Bond: The same way I found out your name. I always thought "M" was a randomly assigned letter. I had no idea it stood for...
M: Utter one more syllable and I'll have you killed.

M: You've got a bloody cheek.
James Bond: Sorry. I'll shoot the camera first next time.
M: Or yourself.

Iris Murdoch: People have obsessions and fears and passions which they don't admit to. I think every character is interesting and has extremes. It's the novelist privilege to see how odd everyone is.

Iris Murdoch: I... wrote?
John Bayley: Yes, my darling, clever cat! You wrote books.
Iris Murdoch: Books... I wrote?
John Bayley: You wrote novels. Wonderful novels.
Iris Murdoch: I... wrote.
John Bayley: Such things you wrote. Special things. Secret things.

Iris Murdoch: There is only one freedom of any importance, freedom of the mind.

Iris Murdoch: We all worry about going mad, don't we? How would we know? Those of us who live in our minds, anyway. Other people would tell us. Would they John?

Iris Murdoch: Reading and writing and the preservation of language and its forms and the kind of eloquence and the kind of beauty which the language is capable of is terribly important to the human beings because this is connected to thought.

Iris Murdoch: Every human soul has seen, perhaps before their birth, pure forms such as justice, temperance, beauty and all the great moral qualities which we hold in honour. We are moved towards what is good by the faint memory of these forms, simple and calm and blessed, which we saw once in a pure, clear light, being pure ourselves.

Annie Hoover: We are the sinners, Edgar. We tolerated lawlessness in the land until it grew to diabolical proportions.

Queen Victoria: Mr Brown.
John Brown: Yes, ma'am.
Queen Victoria: You have been told repeatedly not to stand in the courtyard unless requested to do so.
John Brown: Yes, ma'am.
Queen Victoria: Then why do you persist in doing it?
John Brown: Because I think Her Majesty is wrong. If ever there was a poor soul who needed fresh air, it is her.
Queen Victoria: The Queen will ride out if and when she chooses.
John Brown: And I intend to be there when she's ready.

Barbara Covett: She's the one I have waited for.

Barbara Covett: People like Sheba think they know what it is to be lonely. But of the drip, drip of the long-haul, no-end-in-sight solitude, they know nothing. What it's like to construct an entire weekend around a visit to the launderette. Or to be so chronically untouched that the accidental brush of a bus conductor's hand sends a jolt of longing straight to your groin. Of this, Sheba and her like have no clue.

Sheba Hart: I hadn't been pursued like this for years... I knew it was wrong, and immoral, and completely ridiculous, but, I don't know. I just allowed it to happen.
Barbara Covett: The boy is fifteen.
Sheba Hart: But he's quite mature for his age.

Sheba Hart: My father always used to say... you know, on the tube..."Mind the gap."
Barbara Covett: Oh um.
Sheba Hart: I don't know... it's just the distance between life as you... dream it, and... life as it is.
Barbara Covett: I know exactly what you mean.

Sheba Hart: When you started teaching, didn't you want to give them a real education to help overcome... the poverty of their backgrounds?
Barbara Covett: Oh yes, of course. Bu one soon learns that teaching is crowd control. We're a branch of the social services.
Sue Hodge: Console yourself with the gems. That's when it's satisfying. Then you can make a real difference.
Barbara Covett: The rest is just cattle-prod and pray.

Barbara Covett: We are bound by the secrets we share.

Barbara Covett: When I was young I had such a vision of myself. I dreamed I'd be someone to be reckoned with, you know, in the world. But one learns one's scale. I've such a dread of ending my days alone. But recently, I've allowed myself to think that I may not be. Am I wrong?