Bacall Quotes & Sayings

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. — Lauren Bacall

From my own self-analysis, which I seldom indulge in, I am what I am. — Lauren Bacall

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

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. — Lauren Bacall

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. — Lauren Bacall

No, I'm afraid they might slip and hit a nerve and I'd end up with one side of my face hanging down or something. I'll just stick with this one for a while and take my chances. I'll be brave. — Lauren Bacall

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. — Lauren Bacall

I would love to have read about myself being compared to Lauren Bacall. — Rhea Seehorn

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

Lauren Bacall, James Garner, and Jack Lemmon - they're all gone now, but I was so impressed by them. — John Heard

He [Bogie] had tremendous character and a great sense of honor and would not tolerate lies, even if they asked him what he thought of a movie. We were once at a screening at somebody's house, I forget whose, and they ran a movie that he was in, that he never thought much of. Afterward, the producer asked what he thought of it, and Bogie said "I think it's a crock." And this producer was horrified! He was about to release the movie, and he said to Bogie "Why would you say that?!" Bogie shrugged and said "Then don't ask me." He never played the schmoozing game. He was not into that at all. — Lauren Bacall

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

Patience was not my strong point. — Lauren Bacall

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. — Lauren Bacall

Here is a test to find out whether your mission in life is complete. If you're alive, it isn't. — Lauren Bacall

How many women do we know who were continually kissed by Clark Gable, William Powell, Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy and Fredric March? Only one: Myrna Loy. — Lauren Bacall

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. — Lauren Bacall

You can't get a bad picture out of Bacall. There's nothing eccentric about her. She's perfect all over and yet she looks like nobody else. — Louise Dahl-Wolfe

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. — Lauren Bacall

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

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

Imagination is the highest kite that can fly. — Lauren Bacall

I wanted to live where I could pop to the bar that Humphrey Bogart took Lauren Bacall to, or the little restaurant where Charlie Chaplin had a booth. — Ashley Jensen

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

I fairly often have thought how lucky I was. I knew everybody because I was married to Bogie, and that 25-year difference was the most fantastic thing for me to have in my life. — Lauren Bacall

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

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. — Lauren Bacall

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. — Lauren Bacall

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

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

[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. — Lauren Bacall

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

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. — Lauren Bacall

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

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

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

When I started acting, it was like a double identity crisis - your basic crisis, compounded by people saying, 'there goes Robards' kid, Bacall's kid.' Now I realize, sure, that gets your foot in the door, but once it's there, it's your foot. I'm not bothered anymore. I'm confident of my abilities. — Sam Robards

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. — Lauren Bacall

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

People should tell your children what life is all about
it's about work ... — Lauren Bacall

Remember what Bogie and my mother both used to say: 'Character is the most important thing. All that matters is character!' — Lauren Bacall

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. — Lauren Bacall

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. — Lauren Bacall

God - if the press ever quoted anyone correctly, it would be brilliant. — Lauren Bacall

Joan Rivers telling Lauren Bacall her dress is all wrong is like Carrot Top telling Lenny Bruce he needs to get an edge. — Dennis Miller

If you've got the body and the chutzpah, a pencil skirt is so sexy on older women. Look for ones that fall just below the knee. Think 1940s, cinched-in jackets - imagine you are Lauren Bacall on a date with Humphrey Bogart and you just absolutely have to wear very high heels. — Twiggy

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

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

Facing a situation head on was the only way to deal with anything. I learned the lesson early. — Lauren Bacall

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

Let's face it: I want it all
just like you and everybody else. It may not be in the cards, but the prospect is so dazzling that I have to try. — Lauren Bacall

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

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

Acting is a life of rejection. — Lauren Bacall

To her all books were the same and, as with her subjects, she felt a duty to approach them without prejudice ... Lauren Bacall, Winifred Holtby, Sylvia Plath - who were they? Only be reading could she find out. — Alan Bennett

In The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, David Thomson argues that Brennan should have won awards for even better performances in To Have and Have Not (1944), My Darling Clementine (1946), Red River (1948), The Far Country (1955), and Rio Bravo (1959). Thomson counts no less than twenty-eight high caliber Brennan performances in still more films, including These Three (1936), Fury (1936), Meet John Doe (1941), and Bad Day At Black Rock (1955). Brennan worked with Hollywood's greatest directors - John Ford, Howard Hawks, William Wyler, King Vidor, and Fritz Lang - while also starring in Jean Renoir's Hollywood directorial debut, Swamp Water (1941). To discuss Brennan's greatest performances is also to comment on the work of Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, Dana Andrews, Spencer Tracy, John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Anne Baxter, Barbara Stanwyck, Lana Turner, Linda Darnell, Ginger Rogers, Loretta Young, and many other stars. — Carl Rollyson

It was Howard Hawks who changed my life. — Lauren Bacall

I'd love to play a femme fatale in a film noir. I'm thinking of one of those roles that Lauren Bacall or Bette Davis might have played. What I wouldn't like is to suddenly find myself being cast, as many senior actresses seem to be, as the abbess in a convent. — Diana Quick

As long as I can walk and talk, I'll try almost anything. I say "almost" because the high wire is definitely out. — Lauren Bacall

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. — Lauren Bacall

He named me. He liked the sound of it. And I said, well, all right. I felt a little odd about it. I don't understand all that name changing business anyway ... No, he felt that Lauren Bacall was better sounding than Betty Bacall. He had a vision of his own. He was a svengali. He wanted to mold me. He wanted to control me. And he did until Mr. Bogart got involved. — Lauren Bacall

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

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. — Lauren Bacall

After the age of 30 in the movie profession, you're pretty well over as far as the casting people are concerned. — Lauren Bacall

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. — Lauren Bacall

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! — Lauren Bacall

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. — Lauren Bacall

Losing Bogey was horrible, obviously. Because he was young. And because he gave me my life. I wouldn't have had a - I don't know what would have happened to me if I hadn't met him. I would have had a completely different kind of life. He changed me, he gave me everything. And he was an extraordinary man. — Lauren Bacall

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

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

Howard Hawks said he'd like to put me in a film with Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart. I thought, "Cary Grant-terrific! Humphrey Bogart-yucch." — Lauren Bacall

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. — Lauren Bacall

Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.
-- Lauren Bacall — E.J. Jackson

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

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. — Lauren Bacall

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. — Lauren Bacall

The madmen seem to live on forever, don't they? — Lauren Bacall

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

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 — Lauren Bacall

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

When you talk about a great actor, you're not talking about Tom Cruise. — Lauren Bacall

I am not a has-been. I am a will be. — Lauren Bacall

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

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

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

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

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

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. — Lauren Bacall

Each time a friend dies, the present becomes the past, in an instant. — Lauren Bacall

I'd like to meet the man who decided that people do or don't look Jewish. What the hell does that mean anyway? Is it the American penchant for pinning things down, catergorizing, for pigeonholing people? Whatever it is, it's wrong. — Lauren Bacall

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? — Lauren Bacall

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. — Lauren Bacall

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

I always thought I had crooked eyebrows and crooked teeth. That's why I never understood why people called me a beauty. — Lauren Bacall

It's cinematographic to smoke. Imagine Lauren Bacall without a cigarette. — Marjane Satrapi

We live in an age of mediocrity. — Lauren Bacall

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

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. — Lauren Bacall

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. — Lauren Bacall

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. — Lauren Bacall