Top 50 Lauren Bacall Quotes

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

What is the point of working all your life and then stopping?

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

Acting is a life of rejection.

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

I wish Frank Sinatra would just shut up and sing.

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 was never my favourite subject.

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.

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

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

Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.

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

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.

Patience was not my strong point.

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

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 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 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.

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

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

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?

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.

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

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

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.