Barbara Stanwyck Quotes

Egotism - usually just a case of mistaken nonentity.

The more you kick something that's dead, the worse it smells.

Just be truthful - and if you can fake that, you've got it made.

Eyes are the greatest tool in film. Mr. Capra taught me that. Sure it's nice to say very good dialogue, if you can get it. But great movie acting - watch the eyes!

The boy's got a lot to learn and I've got a lot to teach.

There is a point in portraying surface vulgarity where tragedy and comedy are very close.

Career is too pompous a word. It was a job, and I have always felt privileged to be paid for doing what I love doing.

I'm a tough old broad from Brooklyn. Don't try to make me into something I'm not. If you want someone to tiptoe down the Barkley staircase in crinoline and politely ask where the cattle went, get another girl.

I'm a tough old broad from Brooklyn. I intend to go on acting until I'm ninety, and they won't need to paste my face with make-up.

Attention embarrasses me. I don't like to be on display.

Put me in the last fifteen minutes of a picture and I don't care what happened before. I don't even care if I was IN the rest of the damned thing - I'll take it in those fifteen minutes.

A star is only as good as her last picture.

I couldn't remember my name for weeks. I'd be at the theater and hear them calling 'Miss Stanwyck, Miss Stanwyck,' and I'd think 'Where is that dame? Why doesn't she answer? By crickie, it's me!

I'm now the Lord of the Brighton Manor.

My only problem is finding a way to play my fortieth fallen female in a different way from my thirty-ninth.

[On Marilyn Monroe:] Her body has gone to her head.

[On a dull party:] It was a fête worse than death.

It's perhaps not the future I would choose. I still think it's possible to make a success of both marriage and career even though I didn't. But it's not a bad future. And I'm not afraid of it.

Sponsors obviously care more about a ninety-second commercial and want to pay you more than any guest star gets for a ninety-minute acting performance.