Tom Baker: Likeness

“Jim Acheson, our designer, told me I looked like his Auntie Wyn and I have never forgotten it. I wondered if it was the way I walked or wore my hat, but Jim just said that I had some indefinable air of an aunt. It was then I began to hope that one day I might play Lady Bracknell.”

“Waiting for a 136 bus from Highgate station to Muswell Hill Broadway on a misty evening in February is a bit like lurking outside the gates of purgatory.”

“Living in an institution, rumours of change can make life more bearable, and starting rumours can be a wonderful pleasure for those without much hope. The National Theatre was like that.”

“It is part of my duty as a decent member of my local hamlet to mow the grass in front of the church. It's a pleasant little task and mowing is a favorite activity of mine; it gives me a lot of pleasure to make the churchyard look tidy. I sometimes pause at the grave of someone or other and speculate what he might have been like when he was alive, but gravestones don't tell much.”

“Tom Fleming, the eldest, was said to look like King George V, and indeed, was often mistaken for His Majesty when in the vicinity of Scotland Road, Anfield Road or Lime Street. Why people would suspect that the King might be working in Tate and Lyle's sugar factory is beyond me, but there you are.”

“But we can't escape into the future like we can escape into the past. So those of us who are not certain of things, and there are an awful lot of us, often rush back to the past. And each one has a particular past he prefers to the present. Sometimes I feel that any past is preferable to the present.”

“"Would you like to go to New Zealand to do a commercial?" That's the sort of question an actor likes to hear from his agent in freezing mid -January.”

“The poor don't really like that ticket. They are desperate to get away and join the rich, and have glossy hair, bright eyes and white teeth. The rich live longer and can afford to be charming.”

“Being poor is a little like having an earache over a Bank Holiday. All you can think about is the pain and how long it will be before a healing hand can be found to take away the anguish.”

“Would you like to go to New Zealand to do a commercial?”