Lauren Bacall Quotes

I was never my favourite subject.

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.

Most women use more brains picking a horse in the third at Belmont than they do picking a husband

Very few people want to hear the truth. Bogie was like that, my mother was like that, and I'm like that. I believe in the truth, and I believe in saying what you think. Why not? Do you have to go around whispering all the time or playing a game with people? I just don't believe in that. So I'm not the most adored person on the face of the earth.

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'm not tough, and I never have been. I suppose over the years I've built up kind of a veneer to protect myself because I have functioned on my own for a long, long time, and I have never had a lot of flunkies preceding me to clear the way.

I like to work with really good professional people - anyone with real talent.

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

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.

He [Bogie] had tremendous character and a great sense of honor and would not tolerate lies, even if they asked him what he thought of a movie. We were once at a screening at somebody's house, I forget whose, and they ran a movie that he was in, that he never thought much of. Afterward, the producer asked what he thought of it, and Bogie said "I think it's a crock." And this producer was horrified! He was about to release the movie, and he said to Bogie "Why would you say that?!" Bogie shrugged and said "Then don't ask me." He never played the schmoozing game. He was not into that at all.

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

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

A planned life is a dead life.

To fly as fast as thought, you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived.

If you want me, just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.
(as Marie 'Slim' Browning in To Have and Have Not)

Well, the people I've known I must say are extraordinary. When I think about some of them, I can't believe that I knew them all. And I think the reason I knew most of them at the beginning was because they were of Bogie's generation, 25 years my senior, not mine. But they were the most talented people of all.

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.

You had to stay awake married to him [Humphrey Bogart]. Every time I thought I could relax and do everything I wanted, he'd buck. There was no way to predict his reactions, no matter how well I knew him. As he'd said before our wedding, he expected to be happily married and stay that way, but he never expected to settle down. He liked keeping people off balance. He was good for me
I could never be quite sure what he would do.

Imagination is the highest kite that can fly.

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.

I would hate now to be married. It does occur to me on occasion that, if I fall and hit my head, there will be no one to make the phone call. But who wants to think about that disaster, I'd prefer not to.

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

No one has ever written a romance better than we lived it.

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

I don't consider myself a great actress. I'm just trying to stay alive, actually. I think I'm good, and I've learned a lot, certainly, mostly in the theater. I've been sloughed off movies for years. But what can you do? That's life.

How in hell can you handle love without turning your life upside down? That's what love does, it changes everything.

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.

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

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.

You can't always be a leading lady.

You are welcoming to everyone when you're a liberal. You do not have a small mind.

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'm total, total, total liberal and proud of it.

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.

Half of life's problems disappear when one's head is healthy.

I adored 'Breaking The Waves,' so when Lars von Trier wanted me in 'Dogville,' I was beside myself with joy. He works in a way that nobody I've ever worked with works.

I don't have an entourage. In fact, I have no live-in help.

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.

I am not a wealthy woman. I wish to hell I was, but I never had a wealthy man.

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.

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.

I hope I'm thought of as not just a showbiz personality, but as someone who has lived a life and who has hopefully made a contribution to something along the way - someone who is a human being as well as an actress.

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.

It's inappropriate and vulgar and absolutely unacceptable to use your private life to sell anything commercially.

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

In actual fact, I've never been one, even from childhood, to kind of analyze myself very much.

[Katharine Hepburn] was much stronger, much more opinionated than I am or ever was, and it was considered attractive on her. But not on me. I don't know. Maybe her Bryn Mawr accent was more appealing than mine.

From my own self-analysis, which I seldom indulge in, I am what I am.

Life is not what you expected it to be.

You can't acquire a voice. Either you have it, or you don't.

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

Patience was not my strong point.

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

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.

I don't sit around thinking that I'd like to have another husband; only another man would make me think that way.

I'm a total Democrat. I'm anti-Republican. And it's only fair that you know it ... I'm liberal. The L word!

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

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

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

What is the point of working all your life and then stopping?

I happen to watch public television more than anything else. I'm also a news junkie, so I watch a lot of CNN.

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.

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.

People should tell your children what life is all about
it's about work ...

When I was a kid, it was Bette Davis. She was my idol. I used to cut school and sit in the back of the theater; of course, I would have snuck in because I couldn't afford a ticket.

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.

Life is amazing, life is odd. Life is not what you expected it to be. Things happen ... Growing up takes longer than you think.

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

He named me. He liked the sound of it. And I said, well, all right. I felt a little odd about it. I don't understand all that name changing business anyway ... No, he felt that Lauren Bacall was better sounding than Betty Bacall. He had a vision of his own. He was a svengali. He wanted to mold me. He wanted to control me. And he did until Mr. Bogart got involved.

A famous love story is hard to maintain when you both live in the spotlight.

It's not an old movie if you haven't seen it.

We live in an age of mediocrity.

"My obit is going to be full of Bogart, I'm sure," she says, adding, "I'll never know if that's true. If that's the way it is, that's the way it is."

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

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

I'm a big fan of Daniel Day-Lewis. He's a marvelous actor. He stands alone, I think.

The times in which we're currently living unfortunately, our great leader [George W. Bush] is such a disaster and the entire country is in disastrous shape because of him. It's very frightening, actually, to think that this country has become what it's become and that so many people voted for a man like that. It's terrifying.

Facing a situation head on was the only way to deal with anything. I learned the lesson early.

I'm not ashamed of what I am - of how I pass through this life. What I am has given me the strength to do it. At my lowest ebb I have never contemplated suicide. I value what is here too much. I have a contribution to make. I am not just take up space in this life. I can add something to the lives I touch. I don't like everything I know about myself, and I'll never be satisfied, but nobody's perfect. I'm not sure where the next years will take me - what they will hold - but I'm open to suggestions.

Movies are great fun and wonderful when they're good. But you never get to see them till six months after they're finished. So you never get a sense of whether they're really well liked or how good they are. And you don't really know what the finished product is going to be like, because it's a director's medium.

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.

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

I believe in the truth, and I believe in saying what you think. Why not? Do you have to go around whispering all the time or playing a game with people? I just don't believe in that. So I'm not the most adored person on the face of the earth. You have to know this. There are a lot of people who don't like me at all, I'm very sure of that. But I wasn't put on earth to be liked. I have my own reasons for being and my own sense of what is important and what isn't, and I'm not going to change that.

For my peculiar face, I look best when I look as though I'm not wearing make-up.

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.

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

But the amazing thing about life, I've finally discovered, is that you really don't learn from past mistakes. You do logically, reasonably, but emotionally not for a second.

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

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.

I used to dream of being other places, other people. It was an escape for me.

My definition of a star is someone who really lasts for a very long time.

I figure if I have my health, can pay the rent and I have my friends, I call it 'content.'

It was Howard Hawks who changed my life.

I was this flat-chested, big-footed, lanky thing.

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

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.

I fairly often have thought how lucky I was. I knew everybody because I was married to Bogie, and that 25-year difference was the most fantastic thing for me to have in my life.

Sophie, my dog, is the high in the highlights of my life. Even through rain, snow, ice, and general laziness, she is the reason I smile when I wake up and a comfort to me continually. I could never have imagined that a now five-pound, six-ounce dog would take over my life. But it has happened, and I am happy to have someone to look after and share my moods with.

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.

You learn to rise above a lot of bad things that happen in your life. And you have to keep going.