Fiona Shaw

Fiona: I find it incredibly tedious, hate that it murders itself with its own conservative pomposity.

Fiona: I certainly had no intention of playing a man.

Fiona: I can hardly decide what plays I should be in.

Fiona: Every generation is obsessed with the decade before they were born.

Fiona: And I can remember that extraordinary moment when you first see the words, instead of having to make them out letter by letter.

Fiona: And by endlessly sanitizing our feelings, we actually feed a disgruntled nation.

Fiona: Also, an area that interests me - and it will probably take years to state what I mean - is the period of the rise of democracy, with Tom Paine, which is around the turn of the 18th century into the 19th.

Fiona: I think America becomes more disgruntled by going to the movies and having an endlessly good time at them.

Fiona: I loathe bad theater and most theatre is very bad because it's repetitious, unexciting and, dangerously, it is sometimes praised for those things.

Fiona: I had a ball doing "Harry Potter".

Fiona: There once was a demographic survey done to determine if money was connected to happiness and Ireland was the only place where this did not turn out to be true.

Fiona: Even when they have nothing, the Irish emit a kind of happiness, a joy.

Fiona: Acting doesn't have to be threadbare misery all the time.

Fiona: To be honest I live among the English and have always found them to be very honest in their business dealings. They are noble, hard-working and anxious to do the right thing. But joy eludes them, they lack the joy that the Irish have.

Fiona: A lot of Irish people perform. They perform in drawing rooms. They sing songs and they play piano.