Tony Deyal | Dame Maggie Smith: One of Britain’s most well-known

Dame Maggie Smith (28 December 1934 – 27 September 2024) was one of Britain’s most legendary, prolific, and recognisable actresses. But there is more. Let’s read some of her quotes so that we will have a sense of the great “Dame” Maggie Smith.

For example, in talking about “Society and Manners”, she said, “It always happens when you give these little people power, it goes to their heads like strong drink.” She then had more, like: “Don’t be defeatist, dear, it’s very middle class”; “Vulgarity is no substitute for wit”; “Principles are like prayers; noble, of course, but awkward at a party”; and “It always happens when you give these little people power, it goes to their heads like strong drink.” It is with this ability that you will know that Dame Maggie Smith is one of Britain’s most legendary, prolific, and recognisable actresses.

Moreover, she was celebrated for her razor-sharp wit, formidable commanding presence, and seamless transition between comedy and tragedy. Her extraordinary career spanned over eight decades across theatre, film, and television. For her monumental contributions to the performing arts, Queen Elizabeth II appointed her a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1990. She was further elevated to the elite Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in 2014.

With all her ability and skills, “Dame” is even better in the mix, especially the humour of “Life, Love and People”. First, she started with apologising, but differently, by explaining, “I wouldn’t know, I’m not familiar with the sensation.” Then she went for the human condition: “All life is a series of problems which we must try and solve…” and “No life appears rewarding if you think about it too much.” Then, of relationships and play, she said, “I have plenty of friends I don’t like” and “Life is a game, where the player must appear ridiculous.” She then ended this group of Zingers and Quips (in other words, a quip is a short, witty, and humorous remark, while a zinger is a sharp, clever joke or punchline specifically meant to be at someone’s expense or delivered as an insult). On modern conveniences and mortality, the “Dame” came up with, “I wouldn’t know, I’m not familiar with the sensation.” Then she closed on the human condition: “No Englishman would dream of dying in someone else’s house.” Finally, she added, “I believe that I am past my prime. I had reckoned on my prime lasting till I was at least fifty.”

However, it was when the great “Dame” was the leader in ‘Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham’ that she was brilliant. Everyone saw her at her best for her razor-sharp wit and iconic portrayal. She was the unmatched queen of biting, acid-tongued one-liners in the historic drama series Downton Abbey (2010–2015), and in its follow-up films. Here are some of the best, starting with “Society and Manners”: “What is a weekend?”; “Don’t be defeatist, dear, it’s very middle class”; “Vulgarity is no substitute for wit”; “It always happens when you give these people power, it goes to their heads like strong drink.” Then on “Life, Love and People”, she added more, like: “I wouldn’t know, I’m not familiar with the sensation.” Then the “Human Condition” with “All life is a series of problems which we must try and solve…”, as well as “No life appears rewarding if you think about it too much.” And as the third part, “Relationships and Play”, she made it clear: “I have plenty of friends I don’t like” and “Life is a game, where the player must appear ridiculous.” Then, ending with “Iconic Zingers and Quips”, she asked about modern conveniences: “Is this an instrument of communication, or torture?” and “Stop that noise, I can’t hear myself die!” Then she added, “No Englishman would dream of dying in someone else’s house” and “I believe that I am past my prime. I had reckoned on my prime lasting till I was at least fifty”; “I’ve been playing old parts forever. I play 93 quite often. When you’ve done it more than once, you take the hint. I think it’s a great burden if you’re one of those fantastic stars who’ve always been beautiful, then I think it is hard.”

Now, here are what BrainyQuote considers among Maggie Smith’s best quotations as an English actress (1934–2024): “People say it gets better, but it doesn’t. It just gets different, that’s all”; “I know there is something out there, and like most people, I tend to believe in it more when things go bad. But I’m not like Shirley MacLaine, who probably believes we were past lovers in another life”; “Husbands are chiefly good as lovers when they are betraying their wives”; “I had been feeling a little rum. I don’t think it was anything serious because years ago I had a lump and it was benign. I assumed this would be too. It kind of takes the wind out of your sails, and I don’t know what the future holds, if anything”; “I’m the most unromantic lump of Northern suet. Yes, a woman did accost me once in South Shields, but she had a face like Red Rum”; “I keep sailing on in this middle passage. I am sailing into the wind and the dark. But I am doing my best to keep my boat steady and my sails full”; and, as Maggie Smith said for all of us, “Nobody knew who the hell I was.”

And now, to end the Maggie Smith quotes, here are some of the best: “Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final”; “When you lose someone you love, you start to look for new ways to understand the world.” Then the great lady, Maggie Smith, put it together for all of us: “How I picture it: We are all nesting dolls, carrying the earlier iterations of ourselves inside. We carry the past inside us. We take ourselves, all our selves, wherever we go. Inside forty-something me is the woman I was in my thirties, the woman I was in my twenties, the teenager I was, the child I was. Inside divorced me: married me, the me who loved my husband, the me who believed what we had was irrevocable and permanent, the me who believed in permanence. I still carry these versions of myself. It’s a kind of reincarnation without death: all these different lives we get to live in this one body, as ourselves.”

Tony Deyal liked Maggie Smith’s quote for herself and older people: “We all come into the world unfinished, still stitching ourselves together.”