Helen Hayes Quotes

The old-fashioned idea that the simple piling up of experiences, one on top of another, can make you an artist, is, of course, so much rubbish. If acting were just a matter of experience, then any busy harlot could make Garbo's Camille pale.

Egocentrics are attracted to the inept. It gives them one more excuse for patting themselves on the back.

We relish news of our heroes, forgetting that we are extraordinary to somebody too.

every professional was once a beginner

If you rest, you rust.

An actress always knows when she's hit it and mostly you haven't; but once or twice I think I hit it right, so maybe that's good enough for one life.

Victoria had the discipline of being a queen to help her through the biggest trial of her life - when she lost Albert and faltered. I've had the discipline of the theatre to help me over the ups and downs. A wonderful life . Go it old girl. You've done it well.

Actors work and slave and it is the color of your hair that can determine your fate in the end.

Yes, I have doubted. I have wandererd off the path. I have been lost. But I always returned. It is beyond the logic I seek. It is intuitive - an intrinsic, built-in sense of direction. I seem to find my way home. My faith has wavered but has saved me.

All my dogs have been scamps and thieves and troublemakers and I've adored them all.

One has to grow up with good talk in order to form the habit of it.

Love is perhaps the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity.

There's a little vanity chair that Charlie gave me the first Christmas we knew each other. I'll not be parting with that, nor our bed - the four-poster - I'll be needing that to die in.

People who refuse to rest honorably on their laurels when they reach retirement age seem very admirable to me.

The faster we travel, the less there is to see.

From your parents you learn love and laughter and how to put one foot before the other. But when books are opened you discover that you have wings.

I'm leaving the screen because I don't think I am very good in the pictures and I have this beautiful dream that I'm elegant on the stage.

The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy.

When it comes to staying tuned: if you rest, you rust.

We live in a very tense society. We are pulled apart ... and we all need to learn how to pull ourselves together ... I think that at least part of the answer lies in solitude.

We rely upon the poets, the philosophers, and the playwrights to articulate what most of us can only feel, in joy or sorrow. They illuminate the thoughts for which we only grope; they give us the strength and balm we cannot find in ourselves. Whenever I feel my courage wavering, I rush to them. They give me the wisdom of acceptance, the will and resiliance to push on.

I cry out for order and find it only in art.

Everybody starts at the top, and then has the problem of staying there. Lasting accomplishment, however, is still achieved through a long, slow climb and self-discipline.

The theatre demanded of its members stamina, good digestion, the ability to adjust, and a strong sense of humor. There was no discomfort an actor didn't learn to endure. To survive, we had to be horses and we were.

Stardom can be a gilded slavery.

There is only one terminal dignity - love.