Lauren Bacall Quotations

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

I used to tremble from nerves so badly that the only way I could hold my head steady was to lower my chin practically to my chest and look up at Bogie. That was the beginning of The Look.

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

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

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

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.

Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.

When you talk about a great actor, you're not talking about Tom Cruise. His whole behavior is so shocking. It's inappropriate and vulgar and absolutely unacceptable to use your private life to sell anything commercially, but I think it's kind of a sickness.

When everything happens to you when you're so young, you're very lucky, but by the same token, you're never going to have that same feeling again. The first time anything happens to you - your first love, your first success - the second one is never the same.

I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that.

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

Legends are all to do with the past and nothing to do with the present.

There were times, sure, I wanted my career to go better. But once it starts to go downhill, you can never get back, or only to some degree.

In Hollywood, an equitable divorce settlement means each party getting fifty percent of publicity.

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

I put my career in second place throughout both my marriages and it suffered. I don't regret it. You make choices. If you want a good marriage, you must pay attention to that. If you want to be independent, go ahead. You can't have it all.

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.

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

I loved reading Grimm's fairy tales and Hans Christian Andersen, and I loved to dream about other worlds and other lives. Maybe that has something to do with having an incomplete family, being an only child. All I know is I loved to pretend, and all that was in tandem with my wanting to be an actress.

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.

The biggest misconception people have about me is that I'm in control of every situation. I'm rarely in control of any situation.

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.

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

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.

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

You can't start worrying about what's going to happen. You get spastic enough worrying about what's happening now.

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.

I've always felt that work - learning from people who know more than I know - is what keeps you going.

My mother was the greatest example to me of anyone I've ever known. She didn't have an easy life. I adored her. She worked hard all her life, and she was the one who set my values. She was quite an amazing woman, although she wasn't tough at all.

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

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

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

I wish Frank Sinatra would just shut up and sing.

Stupidity is not my favourite thing; I cannot deal with it.

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

I finally felt that I came into my own when I went on the stage.

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 remember my oldest son, Steve, saying to me once, 'I don't ever remember seeing you with an apron on.' And I thought, that's right, honey, you did not. That was his concept of what a mother should be.

I always wanted to work with Spencer Tracy, which never happened, although I knew him well. And I never worked with Cary Grant.

I'm not a sedentary person. I've always been active.

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

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

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

Film is not a woman's medium. If you weren't the hottest kid in town, men stayed away from you.

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

When a woman reaches twenty-six in America, she's on the slide. It's downhill all the way from then on. It doesn't give you a tremendous feeling of confidence and well-being.

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 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.

The big rule is that you must never get mixed up with a married man - never even look sideways at another woman's fella. Boy, I really was terrific at obeying that rule, wasn't I?

When a person who is very ill decides to treat it like a slight virus, you play that game. If you make a big scene, I think it is yourself you are doing it for, not the person who's ill.

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 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.

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.

It was Howard Hawks who changed my life.

It's just a fact of life that I don't think I've ever been taken particularly seriously in movies by movie makers. I don't know why.

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.

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

That was my original dream, anyway, to be on stage. I think the stage is an actor's place because actors, it belongs to you.

Actors today go into TV, which I don't consider has a lot to do with acting.

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

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

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

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

I studied dancing for 13 years. And loved to dance. Always wanted to dance with Fred Astaire.

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

Young people, even in Hollywood, ask me, 'Were you really married to Humphrey Bogart?' 'Well, yes, I think I was,' I reply.

All the Warner actors were real actors. They started in theater and led very straightforward lives - you never saw entourages around. The MGM girls were the glamour girls, and they always had the makeup and hair people with them and all that.

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 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.

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.

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.

She's not a legend, ... She can't be a legend at whatever age she is. ... You have to be older.

Imagination is the highest kite that one can fly.

You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.

You know you don't have to act with me, Steve. You don't have to say anything, and you don't have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.'

The purity of Jewish upbringing is the restrictions that one carries through life being a "nice Jewish girl" -- what a burden!

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

I'm a fan. My grandchildren are fans. I wish I'd written the books.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

I have made mistakes in the past and been in movies that really weren't good, and that I needed the money at the time, or something -- and the money wasn't even that great. But I needed it, and... they come back on television, those movies... to haunt you. And it's a nightmare!

You spend a good part of your adult life acquiring things: building a home, filling it with objects that please your eye and make you feel comfortable. Then you spend the last part of your life trying to figure out how to get rid of it all.

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.

The purity of Jewish upbringing - the restrictions that one carries through life being a 'nice Jewish girl' - what a burden.

Hollywood is the only place in the world where an amicable divorce means each one gets fifty percent of the publicity.

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.

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.

I'll miss Hollywood. Of the twenty friends I thought I had, I'll miss the six I really had.

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

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

The first time anything happens to you - your first love, your first success - the second one is never the same.

You can't always be a leading lady.

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

Patience was not my strong point.

We live in an age of mediocrity.

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