50 Best Vanessa Redgrave Quotes

[first lines]
Mature: [narrating] Though we were only in our early 20s, little more than girls, we served the women of the East End in their hour of greatest need. In return for our care, they gave us the most precious gift they could: their trust. This made us brave and tireless. And in the main, we did not doubt ourselves, because we were not doubted. But we were not invincible. There were times when we faced challenges and choices of our own.

Mature: [narrating] Newlyweds are always beautiful. They cannot fail to make the heart sing, for even the plainest faces are alive with promise.

[Max responds to Ethan's comment about her gender]
Max: I don't have to tell you what a comfort anonymity can be in my profession. It's like a warm blanket.

Mature: I had begun to see what love could do. Love brought life into the world and women to their knees. Love had the power to break hearts and to save. Love was, like midwifery, the very stuff of life and I was learning how to fly with it. Through all the streets, like the river to the sea.

Mature: [opening diary monologue] Where do we begin? What marks the start of any new adventure? Is it the first step, the deep breath, the single leap of faith? And what do we leave behind us when the future calls?

Eugene: Hello, Max.
Max: My lawyers are going to have a field day with this. Entrapment, jurisdictional conflict...
Eugene: Well, maybe we'll just leave the courts out of this one.
Max: I'm sure we can find something I have that you need.

Mature: [narrating]
[about Cystic Fibrosis]
Mature: Knowledge is a seed that can take centuries to blossom. Understanding has grown, and the children's chances with it. Lessons unfold everywhere.

Annie: We weren't doing anything. I mean, you know, he would pose me, to make me look hot.
Dr. Erica Noughton: How hot, uh...? Did he ever touch you in an inappropriate way?

[last lines]
Mature: [narrating] Sometimes only when bonds are tested do we understand their strength. There are ties that endure for a lifetime no matter how frayed by fate. We can walk away and pretend that we forget them - pain passes in the end - or we can step into the future, blessed and stronger than before. Because when faced with change, our love held fast and did not break. Our lives were not severed, but woven anew, and our joy not halved, but doubled.

[first lines]
Mature: [narrating] Health is the greatest of God's gifts. But we take it for granted. It hangs on a thread as fine as a spider's web. And the smallest thing can make it snap, leaving the strongest of us helpless in an instant. And in that instant, hope is our protector, and love our panacea.

Mature: [ending diary monologue] Sometimes our lives overlap with others only briefly. We share troubles or laughter or learning and move on. Afterwards, all we will hold in common is a memory. The chapter passes like a storm, or sunshine, or an ordinary day. But the heavens always send us something new: a chance, a lease of life, a soulmate, or a friend. And the best, like love itself, fly back to us. In us, they make their home.

Mature: I must have been mad. I could have been an air hostess. I could have been a model. I could have moved to Paris or been a concert pianist. I could have seen the world, been brave, followed my heart. But I didn't. I side-stepped love and set off for the East End of London, because I thought it would be easier. Madness was the only explanation.

Mature: My first Christmas in Poplar was unlike any other I had known. The streets, like all streets, were strung with colored lights, and children drew up lists, like children everywhere. As the days ticked down, it seemed as though the district was fizzing with delight. But at Nonnatus House, a different magic was at work. The Sisters spent Advent in prayer and meditation, and the atmosphere was not one of excitement but of expectant, joyous calm. I wasn't entirely sure what I should make of it. I was young, and faith was still a mystery to me.

[first lines]
Mature: [narrating] It seems to me, gazing back across the decades, that my journey into womanhood began on the streets of East London, working as a midwife in the city's poorest quarter. I never knew an idle day, a misspent hour, a single moment without some sense of purpose. I could be bone tired and I would rally exhausted and bounce back time and again.

[first lines]
Mature: [narrating] In the East End of the Fifties, families tended to be large. Somewhere, far away, scientists were working on a magic pill, rumored to make pregnancy a case of choice, not chance. News of it reached us as from another galaxy. Meanwhile, other scientists were striving to send humans to the moon. To the mothers of Poplar, this goal must have seemed as reachable, and likely.
Mature: It is tempting to look back and say that all women were courageous, and that we met every challenge with courage and with candor. But it was not so.

[first lines]
Mature: [narrating] The River Thames pulsed through the heart of the East End like its blood, sustaining its people, and taking with it much they had thrown away or lost. For some, it marked beginning of a journey. For others, it became a channel of return, bringing back the missing and the loved, the forgotten, and the longed for. It was often an escape route, and sometimes the road home.

Mature: [narrating] Love cannot ease every anguish in the world but tenderly applied, it can transfigure fortunes, light up faces. Turn the tide.

[first lines]
Mature: [narrating] I used to think that night was a time for women. All day the docks were raucous with the lives of men. Lightermen and stevedores, dockers and pilots, the sailors and the drivers of the trains. In the smallest hours, only the river's voice was heard. Only women were awake. Men slept. Mostly.

[first lines]
Mature: [narration] In 1964, ever eastern family had its connection to the wharfs; people belonged to the river and the river belonged to them. And the Thames flowed on like time itself, bringing growth, and change, and challenge.

[first lines]
Mature: To the young it seems no door is closed. And as though all hearts are open, everything is possible, and love comes so easily. I loved my work and the freedom that it brought me. I loved the teeming streets, the families I encountered. I loved it all, and I thought the joy would last for ever.

Uncle: Chi trova un amico, trova un tesoro.
Lightning: What does that mean?
Mama: "Whoever finds a friend, finds a treasure."

[Fred places Jenny's suitcase in the car, while Trixie, Cynthia, Sr. Monica Joan, Sr. Evangelina, and Sr. Julienne gather to say goodbye]
Sister: [quoting Leigh Hunt's poem] Jenny kissed me when we met, jumping from the chair she sat in. Time, you thief, who love to get. Sweets into your list put that in!
Sister: You make sure you eat three square meals a day and a proper breakfast. I have my spies. Hear me?
Cynthia: We will write often. And you must write, too.
Trixie: Yes. We want to hear every titbit of enthralling news from the Motherhouse!
[Cynthia, Trixie, and Jenny embrace, as Sr. Winifred rushes out of the house]
Sister: We've had a call from Joy Higgins in Orient Buildings. Looks like baby's on the way!
Trixie: I should go. I'm first on call.
Sister: Oh! You stay and wave Nurse Lee off.
Cynthia: You sure?
Sister: Never more so.
[Sr. Winifred leaves, as Sr. Julienne takes Jenny's hands]
Sister: May you find peace, my dear.
[Fred helps Jenny get inside the car. Sr. Monica Joan leans through the open window]
Sister: [quoting Leigh Hunt's poem] Say I'm weary, say I'm sad. Say that health and wealth have missed me. Say I'm growing old, but add Jenny kissed me.
[Sr. Monica Joan kisses Jenny's hand. Sr. Evangelina leads Monica Joan away from the car. As the car drives away, the group on the steps wave goodbye]
Mature: [narrating] The doors to Nonnatus House were still wide open but my heart had closed. All I could do was try to keep living until I felt alive again.

Mature: I used to think that night was a time for women. All day, the docks were raucous with the lives of men, lightermen and stevedores, dockers and pilots, the sailors and the drivers of the trains. In the smallest hours, only the river's voice was heard. Only women were awake. Men slept... mostly.

Mature: [ending diary monologue] The past is never lost to us - we carry it with us, everywhere we go. It is in every cell of our body and our soul. It is where we have been; it is where we learn to love; it is where we made our mistakes, and where we can consign them. The gift is knowing that the present will soon pass, and that the way we embrace it has the power to change everything.

Mature: [opening monologue] Some seeds are more predictable than others. We plant them, and they send up shoots; we water them and then we watch them grow. They reward us with abundance, with joy, with pleasure in the rhythms of life itself. Water them and they will flourish, nurture them and they will thrive. Love and light and rain and air are all they need.

Mature: [narrating] The world is full of love that goes unspoken. It doesn't mean that it is felt less deeply, or that separation leaves a cleaner wound. Its beauty, and its pain, are in its silence.
Mature: The typed formal lines of the Master's will, spoke with greater eloquence than he could do in life. Drawn out during the years of his estrangement from his daughter, he'd left the thing he loved most, his public house, to the person he loved most, his last surviving child. And so the past was laid to rest. And her future made secure.

Ethan: [tied to a chair inside an apartment own by one of Max's friends] The disk Job sold you is worthless. Bait. Part of an internal mole hunt.
Max: And how would you know? Are you another company man?
Max: Like Job?
Max: We're asking about you
Ethan: I'm NOC, Was. Now, disavowed.
Max: Why, may I ask?
Ethan: That's the question I want to ask Job.

Mature: [opening diary monologue] The heavens don't always protect us. They choose, on occasion, to throw down challenges instead of simply showering more blessings on our heads. Not every tempest passes in an instant, not every deluge can be brushed off. We can cower, we can wait for blue skies to be restored - or we can take the plunge, defy the elements, and we can seize the day.

Mature: [opening diary monologue] The month of May comes differently in cities: not for us white blossom on the hedgerows, bluebells in the woods - instead the sun's rays burnish bricks and mellow pavements; seeds burst into flower in the cracks between the stones; speedwell and bindweed bloom among the rubble.

[last lines]
Mature: Hope is a thing of extraordinary power. It feeds the soul and yet it can torment it. It can be dashed, yet it can show the way. We learned all this and more in Poplar. We learned about justice and forbearance. And friendship. And what it meant to help somebody move from darkness into light.

Mature: [narrating] We strove to serve women, living alongside and amongst them. Men were creatures that you married, or marvelled at, or yearned for, or found somehow perplexing. Mainly, they made work for us, and we knew no rest.

Mature: [narrating] Sometimes in life, one has to take a chance. Without risk, there's no possibility. Without potential loss, no prize.

Max: [Ethan is tied to a chair inside an apartment own by one of Max's friends] Who are you?... and *what* are you doing here?

Mature: [opening diary monologue] During Lent we give up the things we love. We repent and make sacrifices - even the altar must go without flowers. We deny ourselves pleasure: we forego cake, coffee, biscuits, sugar in our teeth, or try to. We promise to forbid ourselves cigarettes, and when we fail, we are policed by fellow penitents. Enjoyment itself is contraband, much is ruined in pursuit of self-improvement, and we are all exposed as very far from perfect.

[last lines]
Mature: Some Christmases will always be more memorable than others - not because they surpass all the others we've known, but because the light shines from a different source. We're worned, but made wiser; welcomed in and given something new. Christmas isn't a competition, but the prize itself: a gathering and a sharing of the things that matter most. It is of no consequence whether we're the biggest or the brightest; whether we're the strongest, or the bravest, or the most inclined to win. It is the smallest things that have the highest value: the glance that sees, the ear that hears, the thought made deed, and the links in the chain of love that bind us all.

[first lines]
Mature: [narrating] By the time I'd been in Poplar for a year, I'd begun to see myself as rather bold. Coming to examine me? Dank alleys did not frighten me, and neither did their occupants. But did I really take risks? Did I really look beyond the surface, to the darker things beneath? My uniform was my armour. And there was much about the East End that I did not need to know. Much about life I had yet to encounter. It was a safe bet that surprises lay in store.

[last lines]
Mature: [narrating] I played such a small part in their story, but their devotion showed me that there were not versions of love, there was only love. That it had no equal and that it was worth searching for, even if that search took a lifetime.

Annie: Erica, are you mad at me because he spends more time with me than with you?
Dr. Erica Noughton: Don't be ridiculous. It's just, if anything ever happened between you that felt uncomfortable... you'd tell me, wouldn't you?
[Annie frowns]
Dr. Erica Noughton: You have to tell me, Annie.

Mature: [narrating] Some might call it confidence, others name it faith. But if it makes us brave, the label doesn't matter, for it's the thing that frees us to embrace life itself.

[first lines]
Mature: Working as midwives in London's East End, we were no strangers to first light. Or the half dark. When babies arrived, we went to deliver them, no matter what the hour. But the Sisters rose at dawn regardless every day.

[first lines]
Mature: [narrating] I had made Nonnatus House my home. When I needed peace and comfort, when I needed to grieve and to be restored, I did not go far. It was as though its roof still sheltered me, as though I was still safe within its walls.

Mature: [ending diary monologue] The thing that matters is never the thing itself, but rather what we make of it, what we do with our patience and our imagination, what we allow to thrive. Nothing is ever beyond repair - we break, we bleed, and we begin again. Trust can be mended, love can be restored, new shoots can flourish among the broken stone.

Mature: She wouldn't kill him. No mother ever did. She would only curse his name and say there'd never be a next time. And she would mean it. And there always was.

Mature: [ending diary monologue] Not all of us can choose what we give up. The things we love are taken, or never ours at all. Life is defined not by what we let go, but what we let in: friendship and kind words, frailty and hope. To be human is to be imperfect, and to accept that is to thrive. No path is always strewn with flowers, but there in lies the power of each fragile, tender bloom.

[last lines]
Mature: [narrating] Perfection is not a polished thing. It is often simply something that is sincerely meant. Perfection is a job complete, praise given, prayer heard. It can be kindness shown, thanks offered up.
Mature: [as Sally opens a gift package] Perfection is what we discover in each other, what we see reflected back.
Mature: [Sister Evangelina accepts a modest bouquet from Vincent] And if perfection eludes us, that doesn't matter. For what we have within the moment is enough.

Mature: [narrating] Like all of the things in life that are truly meaningful, Christmas is never about perfection. In Bethlehem 2,000 years ago, accommodation was makeshift. The Wise Men followed somewhat confused directions, and the shepherds gave the nearest gifts that came to hand. That year in Poplar, things were similarly compromised. But hope prevailed, and help came from unexpected sources.
[Hilda arrives]

[first lines]
Mature: [narrating] Newborns are always beautiful. They cannot fail to make the heart sing, for even the plainest faces are alive with promise. But I have always seen beauty in old age too. Light shines through the bone, exquisite even as it flickers, even as it flutters and dims towards the end.

[final words]
Mature: [voiceover] In the East End I found grace and faith and hope hidden in the darkest corners. I found tenderness and squalor and laughter amid filth. I found a purpose and a path, and I worked with a passion for the best reason of all - I did it for love.

[last lines]
Mature: [narrating] In later life, I came to see that faith, like hope, is a rope and anchor in a shifting world. Faith cannot be questioned, only lived. And if I could not grasp it then, I felt its heartbeat, which was love.

Mature: [narrating] Midwifery is the very stuff of life. Every child is conceived in love, or lust, and born in pain followed by joy, or by tragedy and anguish. Every birth is attended by a midwife. She is in the thick of it. She sees it all.