I am not a has-been. I am a will be.
Lauren Bacall
I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that.
Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.
Legends are all to do with the past and nothing to do with the present.
You learn to rise above a lot of bad things that happen in your life. And you have to keep going.
When you talk about a great actor, you're not talking about Tom Cruise. His whole behavior is so shocking. It's inappropriate and vulgar and absolutely unacceptable to use your private life to sell anything commercially, but I think it's kind of a sickness.
A woman isn't complete without a man. But where do you find a man - a real man - these days?
My mother was the greatest example to me of anyone I've ever known. She didn't have an easy life. I adored her. She worked hard all her life, and she was the one who set my values. She was quite an amazing woman, although she wasn't tough at all.
I put my career in second place throughout both my marriages and it suffered. I don't regret it. You make choices. If you want a good marriage, you must pay attention to that. If you want to be independent, go ahead. You can't have it all.
Stupidity is not my favourite thing; I cannot deal with it.
Looking at yourself in a mirror isn't exactly a study of life.
I'm a total Democrat. I'm anti-Republican. And it's only fair that you know it... I'm liberal. The L word!
I was this kid, and I was scared to death of all these pros around me... My head would shake, and my hands would shake, and I discovered if I kept my head down and looked up, my head would not shake, so I started to do that when I could, when it was appropriate in a scene.
The big rule is that you must never get mixed up with a married man - never even look sideways at another woman's fella. Boy, I really was terrific at obeying that rule, wasn't I?
I wish Frank Sinatra would just shut up and sing.
All the Warner actors were real actors. They started in theater and led very straightforward lives - you never saw entourages around. The MGM girls were the glamour girls, and they always had the makeup and hair people with them and all that.
Find me a man who's interesting enough to have dinner with and I'll be happy.
Stardom isn't a profession, it's an accident.
I don't look in the mirror; don't like what I see; never have. I am not my idea of a beauty. Never was. This is not false modesty. I've just never been enamoured of my face, which of course is magnified umpteen times on screen.
I'm a big fan of Daniel Day-Lewis. He's a marvelous actor. He stands alone, I think.
The biggest misconception people have about me is that I'm in control of every situation. I'm rarely in control of any situation.
In Hollywood, an equitable divorce settlement means each party getting fifty percent of publicity.
I am essentially a loner.
A famous love story is hard to maintain when you both live in the spotlight.
That was my original dream, anyway, to be on stage. I think the stage is an actor's place because actors, it belongs to you.
What is the point of working all your life and then stopping?
Patience was not my strong point.
I was always a little unsteady in my self-belief. Then there was the Jewish thing. I love being Jewish, I have no problem with it at all. But it did become like a scar, with all these people saying you don't look it.
I studied dancing for 13 years. And loved to dance. Always wanted to dance with Fred Astaire.
For my peculiar face, I look best when I look as though I'm not wearing make-up.
I love being Jewish; I have no problem with it at all. But it did become like a scar, with all these people saying you don't look it.
I wasn't brought up as a society girl to go to balls and be a debutante and marry the social set and money and go to parties. No one in my family lived like that. And I never wanted to live like that. I was brought up to believe in work. I always wanted a career. Always.
I suppose there are times when I can't believe that I've lived the way that I have and done the things that I've done. Life's a joke anyway. It's all ridiculous. It's all so short.
You can't acquire a voice. Either you have it, or you don't.
I don't sit around thinking that I'd like to have another husband; only another man would make me think that way.
I used to tremble from nerves so badly that the only way I could hold my head steady was to lower my chin practically to my chest and look up at Bogie. That was the beginning of The Look.
We live in an age of mediocrity.
There were times, sure, I wanted my career to go better. But once it starts to go downhill, you can never get back, or only to some degree.
My feeling about the movies is that most of them are terrible. If you don't have a decent script and a decent director, forget it.
If I could have lived as an actress in any period, it would have been the 1920s - I would have loved to have been part of that speakeasy era.
I called my business manager in California and said, 'Sell all of my stock' - what little of it I had - and it's the only smart financial move I ever made.
When everything happens to you when you're so young, you're very lucky, but by the same token, you're never going to have that same feeling again. The first time anything happens to you - your first love, your first success - the second one is never the same.
I used to dream of being other places, other people. It was an escape for me.
It's inappropriate and vulgar and absolutely unacceptable to use your private life to sell anything commercially.
In actual fact, I've never been one, even from childhood, to kind of analyze myself very much.
I figure if I have my health, can pay the rent and I have my friends, I call it 'content.'
I happen to watch public television more than anything else. I'm also a news junkie, so I watch a lot of CNN.
When a person who is very ill decides to treat it like a slight virus, you play that game. If you make a big scene, I think it is yourself you are doing it for, not the person who's ill.
You can't always be a leading lady.
They're guys who want to screw around all the time, which interests me not at all. God knows we've done that, been there, and we don't want to do that any more.
