Mercedes McCambridge Quotations

I'm glad I am a woman who once danced naked in the Mediterranean Sea at midnight.

I'd never been in play long enough for the flowers to die in the dressing room

If I have to climb to heaven on a ladder, I shall decline the invitation.

I never wanted a Guardian Angel. I didn't ask for one. One was assigned to me.

I'd stand in line for Confession with old people and little kids, and as the line moved up, I knew when I got into the box that I would lie! Again!

Alcohol is a very patient drug. It will wait for the alcoholic to pick it up one more time.

I can choose to accelerate my disease to an alcoholic death or incurable insanity, or I can choose to live within my thoroughly human condition.

There are zillions of people who say that alcoholism is a disease, but not many of them believe it

I've always had bronchitis. I've been administered the Sacrament of Death three times for it

Neiman-Marcus is one thing, and the Dallas Cowboys are another.

At awards time, The Exorcist was nominated in 11 categories, everybody but the janitor was up for an Oscar. There was no category for what I did.

I lose all control after two drinks of anything

My admiration for the phenomenon of Alcoholics Anonymous is boundless.

My only true harmony lies deep within my soul, wherever that is. I know that somehow I am in tune with the universe.

I loved playing the part of the feisty Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker

My name is real, which probably explains why I never became a superstar... how would that look in lights?

A rich man can afford to be generous to many.

Most people call me Mercy. I like it

My second marriage had a lot to do with alcohol.

The great people I've met always have time for the niceties.

I find it next to impossible to remain politely silent when people prate to me about the glory of being given another chance to live happily ever after!

I am rich from the bequests other gifted people have seen fit to leave to me.

I think The Exorcist was the hardest work I've ever done

Aside from my son, no person has ever shown for me the gentle concern I knew from Governor Adlai Stevenson.

It is a remarkably beautiful piece of home furnishing, the Oscar. I used to keep it up in front of a mirror so that it looked like two

Joan Crawford is a movie queen. I had never met one before. I know now what I don't want to be.

Only a certain breed of actor should ever even try to work for Orson Welles. I'm glad I'm one of that breed.

I have reached a state in life where I can buy a whole house full of chairs and can bump into them until they are black and blue

With two leftover husbands to account for, my wicked soul has just about shriveled and died

I am responsible for no one but myself.

Everything edible is fried in Texas! Or it is buried in the ground to cook before it is eaten. ... Texas food should be forbidden! 'The steaks at night are big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas!' And they are always afloat in grease. Next morning you are served a smaller steak, which serves as a platform for two fried eggs ... all of this afloat in the same grease! 'Chicken, you say? You bet! Comin' up!' Same grease! They are right. Comin' up! For hours afterwards. I couldn't believe the crust of an apple pie! Same grease!

It is said that people learn to hate each other because of little things ... not big ones. I know I have always learned to love because of little things ... I'm not at all sure that there are any big ones.

the Irish ... are full of the fear of the Lord and the joy of living, and they don't know how to combine the two, but they'll sure have a good time trying.

Radio is truly the theater of the mind. The listener constructs the sets, colors them from his own palette, and sculpts and costumes the characters who perform in them.

Nobody understands that by the time the addiction has set in the alcoholic is mandated to drink ... he cannot not drink! Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, 'Jiminy Cricket, I feel sensational! My life is really in great shape! I think I'll become an alcoholic!' I firmly believe that when a shaking-to-pieces alcoholic says he needs a drink or he will die, he means it.

Like so many other recovered alcoholics, I am to this day bewildered that it took so long for me to understand that there was no such animal as 'social drinking' for me; that it had nothing to do with my willpower or self-respect or moral fiber, that it was a simple biochemical intolerance to a drug.

One of the cruelest judgments sustained against me is that I have spoken out as a recovered alcoholic to stimulate my acting career.

When I am rehearsing for a play, I try to read nothing that might distract my concentration from the work in progress.

Young Jimmy Dean fell off the world as suddenly as he had come.

Like many alcoholics, I was a staggering woman in a chic apartment, sick and utterly disgusting.

I cannot sustain hate for longer than a couple of years.

I believe in joy, but I believe in the flip-side, agony.

I was taught to be anti-Jewish.

I have always had a lot more trouble with my truths than with my deceits

I have no use for people who hunt for what they call sport

So many people have really wanted to die. They seem ashamed to say so. I think it would help if they would say so

My anger made me drink as an escape from reality, a way of forgetting. But you don't know when the medicinal effect ends and the poisoning begins ... This is my sixth year of sobriety. Overcoming alcoholism has been my greatest challenge and my greatest reward.

I don't think the Hollywood community is interested in what I can do. That's all right. I've never looked for a job in my life, and I'm not going to start now. I have plenty to keep me busy.

I don't think I should have been married... to anybody.

I can only know what love is insofar as I can feel it.