Vivien Leigh Quotes

Fiddle-dee-dee. War, war, war. This war talk's spoiling all the fun at every party this spring. I get so bored I could scream. Besides, there isn't going to be any war ... If either of you boys says 'war' just once again, I'll go in the house and slam the door.

When I was at school at Paris, I had special lessons from Mademoiselle Antoine, an actress at the Comedie Francaise, and I was taken to every sort of play. I felt very grand.

I have just made out my will and given all the things I have and many that I haven't.

I loved fencing and dancing and elocution.

My husband, who's the greatest actor in the world, can do anything. Look at what he did in The Critic and Oedipus. In every role he gets-he did this in Richard the Third-there's nothing he can't do, nothing. Just nothing.

You know the passage where Scarlett voices her happiness that her mother is dead, so that she can't see what a bad girl Scarlett has become? Well, that's me.

Dear Lord, I'm so grateful I'm still loved.

On the road, they join the bedraggled remnants of a column of exhausted Confederate soldiers evacuating burning Atlanta. Rhett makes her take note of the scene: "Take a good look, my dear. It's a historic moment. You can tell your grandchildren how you watched the Old South disappear one night."

Scarlett: You should die of shame to leave me here alone and helpless. Rhett: You helpless? (laughs) Heaven help the Yankees if they capture you.

Streetcar is the most wonderful, wonderful play.

It's much easier to make people cry than to laugh.

I realize that the memories I cherish most are not the first night successes, but of simple, everyday things: walking through our garden in the country after rain; sitting outside a cafe in Provence, drinking the vin de pays; staying at a little hotel in an English market town with Larry, in the early days after our marriage, when he was serving in the Fleet Air Arm, and I was touring Scotland, so that we had to make long treks to spend weekends together.

Some critics saw fit to say that I was a great actress. I thought that was a foolish, wicket thing to say because it put such an onus and such a responsibility onto me, which I simply wasn't able to carry.

One is just an interpreter of what the playwright thinks, and therefore the greater the playwright, the more satisfying it is to act in the plays.

I am going to be a great actress.

I'm not a film star, I am an actress. Being a film star is such a false life, lived for fake values and for publicity.

I don't know what that Method is. Acting is life, to me, and should be.

My parents were French and Irish and our family even has Spanish blood-and I do so love the United States and consider myself part American.

Every single night I'm nervous. You never know how the audience is going to react.

Streetcar is a most wonderful, wonderful play.

Most of us have compromised with life. Those who fight for what they want will always thrill us.

I was sent successively to schools in France, Italy and Bavaria, and this erratic education was a great help afterwards.

I know I am right for Scarlett. I can convince Mr. Selznick.

Who could quarrel with Clark Gable? We got on well. Whenever anyone on the set was tired or depressed, it was Gable who cheered that person up. Then the newspapers began printing the story that Gable and I were not getting on. This was so ridiculous it served only as a joke. From the time on the standard greeting between Clark and myself became, 'How are you not getting on today?'

I've always been mad about cats.

I never sleep for more than five hours, hardly ever.

When I come into the theatre I get a sense of security. I love an audience. I love people, and I act because I like trying to give pleasure to people.

But I remember the morning after The Mask of Virtue-which is the first play I did at the West End-that some critics saw fit to be as foolish as to say that I was a great actress. And I thought, that was a foolish, wicked thing to say, because it put such an onus and such a responsibility onto me, which I simply wasn't able to carry. And it took me years to learn enough to live up to what they said-for those first notices. I find it so stupid. I remember the critic very well, and have never forgiven him.

A lucky thing Eva Peron was. She died at 32. I'm already 45.

English people don't have very good diction. In France you have to pronounce very particularly and clearly, and learning French at an early age helped me enormously.

I think any classical training in the theatre is of enormous value.

I always know my lines.

Tired of all her efforts at Tara, Scarlett wishes to escape too: "I do want to escape too! I'm so very tired of it all! ... The South is dead, it's dead, the Yankees and the carpetbaggers have got it and there's nothing left for us."

I never found accents difficult, after learning languages.

In Britain, an attractive woman is somehow suspect. If there is talent as well, it is overshadowed. Beauty and brains just can't be entertained; someone has been too extravagant. This does not happen in America or on the Continent, for the looks of a woman are considered a positive advertisement for her gifts and don't detract from them.

Shaw is like a train. One just speaks the words and sits in one's place. But Shakespeare is like bathing in the sea - one swims where one wants.

I think acting is an important profession, because acting can give you pleasure and can teach you at the same time, and that is a good thing.

I've been a godmother loads of times, but being a grandmother is better than anything.