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Parenting & Family Quote by Julie Walters

"My grandmother lived with us for a short time while I was a child. Old people tend to be slightly more eccentric - they can behave the way they want"

About this Quote

Walters smuggles a quietly radical idea into a cozy domestic memory: eccentricity isn’t just a personality quirk, it’s a kind of earned permission. By starting with “My grandmother lived with us,” she anchors the line in the ordinary furniture of family life, then pivots to a broader truth about age that sounds affectionate but carries bite. “Old people tend to be slightly more eccentric” is a soft generalization, the kind you’d say with a fond eye-roll, yet it functions as cover for the more pointed claim that follows: “they can behave the way they want.”

That second clause reframes eccentricity as autonomy. When you’re young, you’re trained to manage impressions - be likable, be employable, be legible. Walters suggests that age loosens those social straps. The elderly are often dismissed, ignored, or treated as background; paradoxically, that marginalization can create freedom. If society stops policing you as closely, you can stop policing yourself.

Coming from an actress, the subtext lands with extra force. Performers spend careers calibrating themselves to other people’s expectations - casting directors, audiences, critics, the tyranny of “palatable.” Walters’s admiration for her grandmother reads like a wish, even a strategy: survive long enough and you might get to drop the performance. It’s also a gentle defense of the “difficult” older woman, a figure culture likes to pathologize. Walters flips her into something closer to a folk hero: someone who, having paid her dues, now claims the right to be unapologetically herself.

Quote Details

TopicGrandparents
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Walters, Julie. (2026, January 16). My grandmother lived with us for a short time while I was a child. Old people tend to be slightly more eccentric - they can behave the way they want. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-grandmother-lived-with-us-for-a-short-time-103849/

Chicago Style
Walters, Julie. "My grandmother lived with us for a short time while I was a child. Old people tend to be slightly more eccentric - they can behave the way they want." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-grandmother-lived-with-us-for-a-short-time-103849/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"My grandmother lived with us for a short time while I was a child. Old people tend to be slightly more eccentric - they can behave the way they want." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-grandmother-lived-with-us-for-a-short-time-103849/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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Julie Walters on elders, eccentricity, and earned freedom
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About the Author

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Julie Walters (born February 22, 1950) is a Actress from United Kingdom.

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