Lauren Bacall Quotes

Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.

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

Yes, I saw Twilight - my granddaughter made me watch it, she said it was the greatest vampire film ever. After the 'film' was over I wanted to smack her across her head with my shoe, but I do not want a (tell-all) book called Grannie Dearest written on me when I die. So instead I gave her a DVD of Murnau's 1922 masterpiece Nosferatu and told her, 'Now that's a vampire film!' And that goes for all of you! Watch Nosferatu instead!

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

Life is amazing, life is odd. Life is not what you expected it to be. Things happen... Growing up takes longer than you think.

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

Standing still is the fastest way of moving backwards in a rapidly changing world.

There are 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.

You learn to cope with whatever you have to cope with. I spent my childhood in New York, riding on subways and buses. And you know what you learn if you're a New Yorker? The world doesn't owe you a damn thing.

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

Growing up takes longer than you think.

Stardom isn't a profession, it's an accident.

One thing I am convinced of is that the more you do, the more you can do.

I wish Frank Sinatra would just shut up and sing.

The times in which we're currently living unfortunately, our great leader [George W. Bush] is such a disaster and the entire country is in disastrous shape because of him. It's very frightening, actually, to think that this country has become what it's become and that so many people voted for a man like that. It's terrifying.

The best things in life are clean living, good works, and big saphires. And not in that order.

If there was one thing I had never been, it was mysterious, and if there was one thing I had never done, it was not talk.

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.

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

Being a liberal is the best thing on earth you can be. You are welcoming to everyone when you're a liberal. You do not have a small mind.

No, I don't like legend. I mean, I don't like the category. And to begin with, to me, a legend is something that is not on the Earth, that is dead

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.

Very few people want to hear the truth. Bogie was like that, my mother was like that, and I'm like that. I believe in the truth, and I believe in saying what you think. Why not? Do you have to go around whispering all the time or playing a game with people? I just don't believe in that. So I'm not the most adored person on the face of the earth.

I’m not ashamed of what I am - of how I pass through this life. What I am has given me the strength to do it. At my lowest ebb I have never contemplated suicide. I value what is here too much. I have a contribution to make. I am not just take up space in this life. I can add something to the lives I touch. I don’t like everything I know about myself, and I’ll never be satisfied, but nobody’s perfect. I’m not sure where the next years will take me - what they will hold - but I’m open to suggestions.

My life has had meaning, with the friendships full and valuable and essential to me. My children, Steve, Leslie, and Sam, are all different-all first-rate human beings with high standards-whom I completely and unequivocally adore-don't always agree with-but always admire and respect. They all have wit and a sense of humor and, thank God, I have hung on to mine.

I am essentially a loner.

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.

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

No one has ever written a romance better than we lived it.

Everything in this country [the US] has got to be good looks and unlined faces and thin bodies and people running around in skirts slit up to their ass. It has nothing to do with thinking or with being a human being. There is life in mature people; it's not all over at 24½.

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.

Well, the people I've known I must say are extraordinary. When I think about some of them, I can't believe that I knew them all. And I think the reason I knew most of them at the beginning was because they were of Bogie's generation, 25 years my senior, not mine. But they were the most talented people of all.

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

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

It's not an old movie if you haven't seen it.

When you talk about a great actor, you're not talking about Tom Cruise. His whole behavior is so shocking.

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.

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

If goodness is its own reward, shouldn't we get a little something for being naughty?

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.

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.

Being a liberal is the best thing on earth you can be. You are welcoming to everyone when you're a liberal. You do not have a small mind... I'm total, total, total liberal and proud of it. And I think it's outrageous to say "The L word". I mean, excuse me. They should be damn lucky that they were liberals here. Liberals gave more to the population of the United States than any other group.

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 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.

[Katharine Hepburn] was much stronger, much more opinionated than I am or ever was, and it was considered attractive on her. But not on me. I don't know. Maybe her Bryn Mawr accent was more appealing than mine.

I find that through the sad times, work is what made my continuing, not breaking down, possible. In work, I was always someone else and I subconsciously reveled in that.

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

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.

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