Quotes from Pauline Collins movies and TV shows

Margaret Drummond: The will to survive is strong, stronger than anything.

Adrienne Pargiter: You don't hate them do you?
Margaret Drummond: No.
Adrienne Pargiter: Why not?
Margaret Drummond: I've tried, but I can't bring myself to hate people. The worse they behave, the sorrier I feel for them.

Jean: Are you telling me to go out and smell the roses?
Cissy Robson: Oh no. We're telling you the roses are long gone. But the chrysanthemums are magnificent.

Young Shirley Valentine: Well, tickle my tits 'til Friday.

Shirley Valentine: I'm not sayin' he's bad, my fella. He's just no bleedin' good.

Shirley Valentine: So, just think how exciting it'll be if for once you had it at a quarter past six. It'd make headlines. "World exclusive: Joe eats late."

Shirley Valentine: I have allowed myself to lead this little life, when inside me there was so much more. And it's all gone unused. And now it never will be. Why do we get all this life if we don't ever use it? Why do we get all these feelings and dreams and hopes if we don't ever use them?

Shirley Valentine: I'm not sayin' she's a bragger, but if you've been to Paradise, she's got a season ticket. She's that type, Gillian, you know. If you've got a headache, she's got a brain tumor.

Shirley Valentine: I think that marriage is like the Middle East - there's no solution.

Shirley Valentine: Jane divorced her husband. I never knew him, it was before I met her. Apparently she came home from work unexpectedly one morning and found him in bed with the milkman. Honest to God, the milkman! But from that day forward I've noticed she never takes milk in her tea.

Shirley Valentine: I was never really interested in school after that.
Shirley Valentine: I became a rebel.
Shirley Valentine: I used to wear my school skirt so high you would have thought it was a serviette.
Shirley Valentine: I was marvelous.
Shirley Valentine: I used to exude boredom from every pore and I hated everything.