Lauren Bacall famous quotes

Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Women #Educational #Inspiration

The problem in America as far as actors are concerned - and it's probably true in other fields, as well - is that they don't value people who are older or talented. I don't think ability means anything. How much money you have or how much money you can make for them are the only things they seem to care about or understand.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Mean #Thinking #America

I am not a has-been. I am a will be.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Confidence #Meaningful #Memorable

I think I'm damn lucky. I'm lucky that my kids are all straight, that they haven't ended up in jail, that they're all worthwhile human beings, thank God. Their lives are happy; they have happy partners, wives, husbands.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Husband #Kids #Thinking

I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Love #Beauty #Memorable

Legends are all to do with the past and nothing to do with the present.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Past #Legends

Standing still is the fastest way of moving backwards in a rapidly changing world.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Change #Moving #World

No, I don't like legend. I mean, I don't like the category. And to begin with, to me, a legend is something that is not on the Earth, that is dead
-- Lauren Bacall

#Memorable #Mean #Earth

A man's illness is his private territory and, no matter how much he loves you and how close you are, you stay an outsider. You are healthy.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Love You #Men #Healthy

I wish Frank Sinatra would just shut up and sing.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Wish #Shut Up #Frank

Yes, I saw Twilight - my granddaughter made me watch it, she said it was the greatest vampire film ever. After the 'film' was over I wanted to smack her across her head with my shoe, but I do not want a (tell-all) book called Grannie Dearest written on me when I die. So instead I gave her a DVD of Murnau's 1922 masterpiece Nosferatu and told her, 'Now that's a vampire film!' And that goes for all of you! Watch Nosferatu instead!
-- Lauren Bacall

#Book #Twilight #Shoes

I find that through the sad times, work is what made my continuing, not breaking down, possible. In work, I was always someone else and I subconsciously reveled in that.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Breaking Down #Made #Continuing

In Hollywood, an equitable divorce settlement means each party getting fifty percent of publicity.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Women #Party #Mean

You realize yourself when you start reflecting - because I don't live in the past, although your past is so much a part of what you are - that you can't ignore it. But I don't look at scrapbooks.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Past #Looks #Realizing

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.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Thinking #Talking #Use

I'm total, total, total liberal and proud of it.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Proud

Stardom isn't a profession, it's an accident.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Stardom #Profession #Accidents

My son tells me, 'Do you realize you are the last one? The last person who was an eyewitness to the golden age?' Young people, even in Hollywood, ask me, 'Were you really married to Humphrey Bogart?' 'Well, yes, I think I was,' I reply. You realize yourself when you start reflecting - because I don't live in the past, although your past is so much a part of what you are - that you can't ignore it. But I don't look at scrapbooks. I could show you some, but I'd have to climb ladders, and I can't climb
-- Lauren Bacall

#Memorable #Son #Past

Looking at yourself in a mirror isn't exactly a study of life.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Humility #Mirrors #Study

I spent my childhood in New York, riding on subways and buses. And you know what you learn if you're a New Yorker? The world doesn't owe you a damn thing.
-- Lauren Bacall

#New York #Childhood #Riding

Men need to feel important. They feel better when they're with younger girls or unknown girls.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Girl #Feel Better #Men

When you talk about a great actor, you're not talking about Tom Cruise.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Talking #Acting #Actors

Remember what Bogie and my mother both used to say: 'Character is the most important thing. All that matters is character!'
-- Lauren Bacall

#Mother #Memorable #Character

God if the press ever quoted anyone correctly it would be brilliant.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Memorable #Would Be #Brilliant

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.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Nerves #Looks #Way

If there was one thing I had never been, it was mysterious, and if there was one thing I had never done, it was not talk.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Done #Mysterious

You don't always win your battles, but it's good to know you fought.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Hate #Winning #Battle

I finally felt that I came into my own when I went on the stage.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Stage

I'm not a sedentary person. I've always been active.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Active #Persons

Actors today go into TV, which I don't consider has a lot to do with acting.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Acting #Actors #Today

I don't think being the only child of a single parent helped. 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.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Children #Love Is #Thinking

Actors today go into TV, which I don't consider has a lot to do with acting. They only think of stardom. If you photograph well, that's enough. I have a terrible time distinguishing one from another. Girls wear their hair the same, and are much too anorexic-looking.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Girl #Thinking #Hair

If goodness is its own reward, shouldn't we get a little something for being naughty?
-- Lauren Bacall

#Naughty #Littles #Rewards

As long as I can walk and talk, I'll try almost anything. I say "almost" because the high wire is definitely out.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Long #Trying #Wire

My life has had meaning, with the friendships full and valuable and essential to me. My children, Steve, Leslie, and Sam, are all different-all first-rate human beings with high standards-whom I completely and unequivocally adore-don't always agree with-but always admire and respect. They all have wit and a sense of humor and, thank God, I have hung on to mine.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Children #Thank God #High Standards

A woman isn't complete without a man. But where do you find a man - a real man - these days?
-- Lauren Bacall

#Real #Real Men #Men

I remember my oldest son, Steve, saying to me once, 'I don't ever remember seeing you with an apron on.' And I thought, that's right, honey, you did not. That was his concept of what a mother should be.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Mother #Son #Honey

Generally women are better than men -- they have more character. I prefer men for some things, obviously, but women have a greater sense of honor and are more willing to take a chance with their lives.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Character #Men #Honor

Being a liberal is the best thing on earth you can be. You are welcoming to everyone when you're a liberal. You do not have a small mind... I'm total, total, total liberal and proud of it. And I think it's outrageous to say "The L word". I mean, excuse me. They should be damn lucky that they were liberals here. Liberals gave more to the population of the United States than any other group.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Mean #Thinking #Mind

I have made mistakes in the past and been in movies that really weren't good, and that I needed the money at the time, or something -- and the money wasn't even that great. But I needed it, and... they come back on television, those movies... to haunt you. And it's a nightmare!
-- Lauren Bacall

#Mistake #Past #Television

You spend a good part of your adult life acquiring things: building a home, filling it with objects that please your eye and make you feel comfortable. Then you spend the last part of your life trying to figure out how to get rid of it all.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Home #Eye #Trying

the real stakes in the theater are high - they are life stakes. That's what I love about it. You gamble with your life, and that's a gamble worth taking.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Real #Theater #Stakes

The best things in life are clean living, good works, and big saphires. And not in that order.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Order #Moral #Best Things In Life

The purity of Jewish upbringing - the restrictions that one carries through life being a 'nice Jewish girl' - what a burden.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Girl #Nice #Purity

Isn't hope an incredible, a wonderfully demented thing?
-- Lauren Bacall

#Hope #Incredibles #Demented

Hollywood is the only place in the world where an amicable divorce means each one gets fifty percent of the publicity.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Mean #Divorce #Hollywood

I'll miss Hollywood. Of the twenty friends I thought I had, I'll miss the six I really had.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Missing #Twenties #Hollywood

Growing up takes longer than you think.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Growing Up #Thinking #Growth

I'm crazy enough to believe in taking chances in every way, in making choices and gambling with your life. That's the kind of gambling I believe in.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Crazy #Believe #Gambling

In the world of relationships, possibly the most complicated, uncommon, hard to find, hard to keep and most rewarding has got to be friendship.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Friendship #World #Complicated

Each time a friend dies, the present becomes the past, in an instant.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Past #Instant

All actors are terrified - they just learn how to control it.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Actors

How long an actress lives professionally depends on her stamina, the extent of her masochism, her imagination, and her yearning for recognition or approval.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Long #Imagination #Actors

One thing I am convinced of is that the more you do, the more you can do.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Action

I always thought I had crooked eyebrows and crooked teeth. That's why I never understood why people called me a beauty.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Eyebrows #People #Teeth

The industry is s**t, it's the medium that's great.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Hollywood #Film #Mediums

How many women do we know who were continually kissed by Clark Gable, William Powell, Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy and Fredric March? Only one: Myrna Loy.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Art #March #Grants

I never believed marriage was a lasting institution . . . I thought that to be married for five years was to be married forever.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Years #Forever #Married

You can't always be a leading lady.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Memorable

Find me a man who's interesting enough to have dinner with and I'll be happy.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Memorable #Men #Interesting

Everything in this country [the US] has got to be good looks and unlined faces and thin bodies and people running around in skirts slit up to their ass. It has nothing to do with thinking or with being a human being. There is life in mature people; it's not all over at 24½.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Country #Running #Memorable

No, I'm afraid they might slip and hit a nerve and I'd end up with one side of my face hanging down or something. I'll just stick with this one for a while and take my chances. I'll be brave.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Memorable #Brave #Faces

The biggest misconception people have about me is that I'm in control of every situation. I'm rarely in control of any situation.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Memorable #People #Situation

After the age of 30 in the movie profession, you're pretty well over as far as the casting people are concerned.
-- Lauren Bacall

#Memorable #People #Age