I've always admired gardens. My father was a great nature lover and would always take me for walks. We lived not too far away from huge rhododendron estates and azalea estates, and when they're in bloom in England, they're just riotous.
— Julie Andrews
I think birth and motherhood are not things that you're trained to do. You might have a good example in your own mum, but nobody teaches you how to be a really great mum.
Every time I go out to perform, believe me. You never lose that fear of, 'I hope I do it right. I hope I don't fall flat on my face. I hope this will be good for them.'
When you are traveling in vaudeville, you experience so many different kinds of audiences, depending on what time of the week it is, how long the pubs have been open, and things like that.
You can't bring the arts too soon to kids.
I love that President and Mrs. Obama are embracing the arts. I am so delighted.
Marriage is the hardest work you're ever going to do.
When one door closes, another window opens.
More than anything, the arts are the best teaching tool.
I do not knock 'Poppins' or 'The Sound of Music.' They gave me pleasure, and I know they've given a lot of people enormous pleasure.
I've always seen the cup as half-full.
By nature, I really am a fairly bouncy and sunny individual.
My mother was terribly important to me, and I know how much I yearned for her in my youth, but I don't think I truly trusted her.
Truthfully, I mostly can be as private as I want.
I turned down 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brody' with Maggie Smith. I think she got the Academy Award.
Like most girls, I fantasized about being some sort of a princess.
Much as I adore the melodies, I choose a song for what it has to say.
I'd love to have a really flourishing vegetable garden, and I'd love to have a better area for a rose garden or a cutting garden, but I don't. You have to develop a garden in the way that it's meant to be developed.
I'm the lucky one who got asked to do 'The Sound of Music' and all the other lovely things that I did.
I'm never sure one is exactly ready. You jump in, with both feet, into a very big fish pond.
Who could have imagined that life would have taken such marvelous twists and turns or that I would often be so fortunate to be in the right place at the right time?
There's nothing like the joy of the arts, and promoting the arts early in children is going to give them such a start in life in a way.
I've made my pact with the Lord for the next lifetime. I would love to be a first-class musician. A super one.
I come from a long line of below-stairs maids and gardeners. Good ol' peasant stock. My mother and her sister made a quantum leap out of that life. Then I made another quantum leap.
I do get a lot of gifts. I get a lot of things to sign, too. People do collect the memorabilia. Between 'Poppins' and 'The Sound of Music,' there were beautiful plates that they made, and I've signed a lot of them.
Programs that bring the arts to young kids are always the first to be cut. It's mind-boggling to me.
Actually, I had a lot of good people with me - my mother's sister did a lot of taking care of me, and I suppose I got more attention than my stepbrothers because at least I got to travel with my parents.
I know I probably have a lot of rage in me that I don't show. But I'm not about to wallow in it or reveal it.
I'm resilient, and I'm professional.
When I did 'The Sound of Music' and 'Mary Poppins' and 'The Americanization of Emily,' all three were in the can and had not yet been released. So I was driving around having a fine time learning about how to make movies and enjoying myself enormously, and then they were released, and it was quite an assault, in a way.
I grew up knowing only war, so for me, it was the way things were. It wasn't pleasant by any means.
I do wish somewhere there was a film of our stage production of 'My Fair Lady.'
Growing up in England, of course you do absorb certain ways the royals wave their hands and carry themselves.
I'm not very good with some of the more modern songs that have an awful lot of 'doo wah wahs,' if you know what I mean, because I can't do anything with them.
I love to prune my roses. That's the one thing I really feel I do pretty well. Other things I usually, because I travel so much, leave to my gardeners who know what I love. But I do love to prune them, because you forget everything else. It's like if you're a painter, you can forget everything else while you're doing it.
Touring itself - and I was very young, and a lot of it I did by myself - it's lonely, but it does give you some kind of spine, I think. It does give you some kind of grit.
I had toured around England endlessly throughout my teens, but when I came to the U.S. to perform on Broadway, that was a huge step.
The arts need funding.
I think it's the essence of any film and any stage production - any work where you do work with other people - of course collaboration is hugely important. One does, for awhile, become family.
I love my garden. I love my privacy. I'm very fierce about it. I try not to let too many people into my home. That's my private place.
Singing has been a cherished gift, and my inability to sing has been a devastating blow.
The arts bridge cultures; they're good for the economy, and they're good for fostering empathy and decency.
Whenever I think of my birthplace, Walton-on-Thames, my reference first and foremost is the river. I love the smell of the river; love its history, its gentleness. I was aware of its presence from my earliest years. Its majesty centered me, calmed me, was a solace to a certain extent.
I didn't know other children from divorced families, and I was a bit of a lost soul for a while. Then suddenly, I was performing. And it gave me an identity.
There are elements of me in the roles I've played in the past. But people forget that Mary Poppins was just a role, too.
I justified working so hard by knowing that I was helping to maintain the roof over our heads.
I seem to be very busy, and I seem always to be working.
My mother and stepfather were in Vaudeville. And my stepfather was an alcoholic. It was a lot of roller coaster times. But it's all I knew. I think they did the best they could under the circumstances, with me and all the family.
I was a child prodigy who had a freak voice of something like four octaves.
In my early years, I was much too ignorant and didn't realize how desperately important it all is, how really important the lyrics are. And for me as a singer, I am a lady who takes the lyrics first.
