Katharine Hepburn Quotations

The average Hollywood film star's ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend.

If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.

We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers - but never blame yourself. It's never your fault. But it's always your fault, because if you wanted to change you're the one who has got to change.

Life is hard. After all, it kills you.

Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.

Dressing up is a bore. At a certain age, you decorate yourself to attract the opposite sex, and at a certain age, I did that. But I'm past that age.

Being a housewife and a mother is the biggest job in the world, but if it doesn't interest you, don't do it - I would have made a terrible mother.

Acting is the most minor of gifts. After all, Shirley Temple could do it when she was four.

Only the really plain people know about love - the very fascinating ones try so hard to create an impression that they soon exhaust their talents.

To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.

Plain women know more about men than beautiful women do.

If you want to change attitudes, start with a change in behavior.

Acting is a nice childish profession - pretending you're someone else and, at the same time, selling yourself.

I think most of the people involved in any art always secretly wonder whether they are really there because they're good or there because they're lucky.

Why slap them on the wrist with feather when you can belt them over the head with a sledgehammer.

Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting. And you don't do that by sitting around.

If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun.

Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get - only with what you are expecting to give - which is everything.

If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.

I have many regrets, and I'm sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret... if you have any sense, and if you don't regret them, maybe you're stupid.

My greatest strength is common sense. I'm really a standard brand - like Campbell's tomato soup or Baker's chocolate.

It would be a terrific innovation if you could get your mind to stretch a little further than the next wisecrack.

As for me, prizes are nothing. My prize is my work.

I never lose sight of the fact that just being is fun.

I never realized until lately that women were supposed to be the inferior sex.

Death will be a great relief. No more interviews.

It's a rather rude gesture, but at least it's clear what you mean.

When I started out, I didn't have any desire to be an actress or to learn how to act. I just wanted to be famous.

If you want to give up the admiration of thousands of men for the distain of one, go ahead, get married.

It's life isn't it? You plow ahead and make a hit. And you plow on and someone passes you. Then someone passes them. Time levels.

Trying to be fascinating is an asinine position to be in.

Marriage is a series of desperate arguments people feel passionately about.

My greatest strength is... common sense. I'm really a standard brand - like Campbell's tomato soup or Baker's chocolate.

Only the really plain people know about love-the very fascinating ones try so hard to create an impression that they soon exhaust their talents.

I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true.

I don't care what is written about me as long as it isn't true.

Plain women know more about men than beautiful ones do.

Someone asked someone who was about my age: "How are you?" The answer was, "Fine. If you don't ask for details.

Someone asked someone who was about my age: ""How are you?"" The answer was, ""Fine. If you don't ask for details.

Living wasn't easy for you, was it? You couldn't enter your own life, but you could be someone else. You weren't you then; you were safe.

Drive on. We'll sweep up the blood later!

The most minor gifts and not a very high class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four.

Acting is a nice childish profession - pretending you're someone else and, at the same time, selling yourself

. . . as one goes through life one learns that if you don't paddle your own canoe, you don't move.

It's life, isn't it? You plow ahead and make a hit. And you plow on and someone passes you. Then someone passes them. Time levels.

The noise is so loud that birds, waves, and people are silenced by the frantic roar of morons screaming and tearing back and forth, back and forth, devastating the peace of a quiet day at the beach and the joy of fellow boatmen on the water.

If you obey all of the rules, you miss all of the fun.

Loved people are loving people.

Life's what's important. Walking, houses, family. Birth and pain and joy - and then death.

I love rain. It's lucky, I always think.

Friendship, if somebody holds out his hand toward you, you've got to reach and take it... There are too many people alone, and if you're lucky enough for somebody to want you as a friend, it's an obligation.

Don't give in! Make your own trail. Don't moan. Don't complain. Think positively.

All my life, I've stayed at parties too long because I didn't know when to go.

What acting means is that you've got to get out of your own skin.

It's a new low for actresses when you have to wonder what is between her ears instead of her legs.

We were brought up in the school that teaches: You do what the script tells you. Deliver the goods without comment. Live it-do it-or shut up. After all, the writer is what's important. If the script is good and you don't get in its way, it will come off okay. I never discussed a script with Spence [Spencer Tracy]; we just did it. The same with Hank [Henry Fonda] in On Golden Pond. Naturally and unconsciously we joined into what I call a musical necessity-the chemistry that brings out the essence of the characters and the work.

Life is very hard, isn't it? It does kill you, after all.

I won't go to a restaurant to eat with friends, always join them afterwards for coffee. In company I always get over enthusiastic, and this leads to indigestion.

People who want to be famous are really loners. Or they should be.

You learn in life that the only person you can really correct and change is yourself.

Man who stands on toilet, gets high on pot!

When a man says he likes a woman in a skirt, I tell him to try one.

A boy sows a wild oat or two, the world winks. A girl does the same -- scandal.

Don't moan, don't whine, don't blame. Just get on with it.

Time is the stuff of which life is made.

Its a force of life, sex; you cant deny the thrill of riding high, wide and handsome with someone you love.

I have loved and been in love. There's a big difference.

A sharp knife cuts the quickest and hurts the least.

There are no laurels in life, just new challenges.

I think everyone is an opportunist if they have an opportunity.

Show me an actress who isn't a personality and I'll show you a woman who isn't a star.

I would have made a terrible parent. The first time my child didn't do what I wanted, I'd kill him.

How wonderful are the women and men in the world who feed us. Especially those who feed us with no salary. The mothers—I thought. The wives.

Only when a woman decides not to have children, can a woman live like a man. That's what I've done.

To be loved is very demoralizing

I don't believe in marriage. It's bloody impractical. 'To love, honor, and obey.' If it weren't, you wouldn't have to sign a contract.

Children need boundaries, so they can know how far they have to go to get beyond them.

I believe how I act today will affect how I am tomorrow.

I have had twenty years of perfect companionship with a man among men. He is a rock and a protection. I have never regretted it.

I could peel you like a pear and god himself would see the justice in it.

Not everyone is lucky enough to understand how delicious it is to suffer,

It's a bore - B-O-R-E - when you find you've begun to rot.

I have always lived my life exactly as I wanted. I've tried to please no one but myself... but I'm entirely content. I can sit back in my old age and not regret a single moment, not wish to change a single thing. It's what I wish for you...a life with no regrets.

The calla lilies are in bloom again.

I don't feel the slightest interest in the next world; I think it's here. And I think anything good that you're going to do, you should do for other people here and not so you can try to have a happy time in the next world.

The time to make up your mind about people is never.

I welcome death. In death there are no interviews!

I remember as a child going around with "Votes For Women" balloons. I learnt early what it is to be snubbed for a good cause.

Who is Katharine Hepburn? It took me a long time to create that creature.

My father, a surgeon and urologist, studied sex professionally all his life. Before he died at 82, he told me he hadn't come to any conclusions about it at all.

If it interests you, they don't have to pay you. It's a fascinating business anyway-it's very nice to be paid-but when you do thrilling material, it's like buying a piece of furniture that's really good.

I can't say I believe in prizes. I was a whiz in the three-legged race - that's something you CAN win.

You sell yourself. The part that I sell is the creature. The adorable part.

Just write the best you can about the things that concern you most. I never lose sight of the fact that just being is fun.

I think the reason that very few people really fall in love with anyone is that they're not willing to pay the price.

I'm what is known as gradually disintegrating. I don't fear the next world, or anything. I don't fear hell, and I don't look forward to heaven.

I always wanted to be a movie actress. I thought it was very romantic. And it was.

People have grown fond of me, like some old building.

I thought, can you think of any really good reason not to do it? Except that, oh, I'm so shy, or oh, my private life, or oh, are they going to find out how boring I am? You know? And that was the only reason now, in a sense, not to do television. Because it certainly is a method of expression, which has to be accepted as these things come along.

If you have fame, you never feel that you have fame, if you have the brains of a flea. Because fame is something that's over back of you. It ain't ahead.... Not ahead at all. I mean, if you've done it that's great, but "what are you going to do now?" is the only thing that matters.