Vivien Quotes & Sayings

Things are simple when you're going to die. — Vivien Leigh

It is not our circumstances that create our discontent or contentment. It is us. — Vivien Greene

We all wanted to copy Vivien Leigh. — Natalie Wood

Every single night I'm nervous. You never know how the audience is going to react. — Vivien Leigh

I don't much like crowds. You ought to count yourself lucky - when I took Vivien round to show her the restored rooms a couple of years ago, we had to hide in a cupboard for twenty minutes." Lucky Vivien, I almost said, but I caught myself in time. Instead I asked him, tongue in cheek, "There's a name for that, isn't there? A pathological fear of crowds?" He nodded. "Privacy. — Susanna Kearsley

Streetcar is the most wonderful, wonderful play. — Vivien Leigh

Scarlett tells Mammy: "I'm too young to be a widow." She weeps to her mother: "My life is over. Nothing will ever happen to me anymore." Her mother comforts her: "It's only natural to want to look young and be young when you are young." — Vivien Leigh

Classical plays require more imagination and more general training to be able to do. That's why I like playing Shakespeare better than anything else. — Vivien Leigh

The only times she ever felt at peace now were at his concerts. Then she could sit quietly, watching him, and sate her heart. In his music was where he lived and revived, and where she'd first loved him. And she knew, always, always when she was there, that he played for her. — Vivien Shotwell

It's much easier to make people cry than to laugh. — Vivien Leigh

I think acting is an important profession, because acting can give you pleasure and can teach you at the same time, and that is a good thing. — Vivien Leigh

Life is too short to work so hard. — Vivien Leigh

With extreme care, Morgan curved his arm around her waist and pulled her back against him, so they were pressed together spoon fashion. Vivien couldn't prevent a small gasp at the animal heat and hardness of his body, evident through the nightclothes that separated them.
"You're not afraid, are you?" he murmured at the soft sound.
"No," she replied breathlessly. "But... I'm having a difficult time thinking of you as a friend."
The arm at her waist tightened a minute degree. "Good," he said thickly. — Lisa Kleypas

I think any classical training in the theatre is of enormous value. — Vivien Leigh

All that is real is seen with the heart. — Vivien Greene

I hope my life will prove a useful & good one, to many people." - Vivien Leigh — Kendra Bean

I hope that's a good thing,' I said, thinking he might say I reminded him of a film star- then we'd actually have something in common. I was hoping for Anne Hathaway or Julia Roberts, and not the obvious Vivien Leigh. Even Angelina Jolie would have done, though I'd never quite forgiven her for stealing Brad's heart. Talking of Brad, was Sean starting to resemble him too? No, he could never be a Brad, a Matthew McConaughey maybe at a push, but never a Brad Pitt. — Ali McNamara

I'm not afraid to die. — Vivien Leigh

Just the actual physical ability to hold four instruments simultaneously and do some of the things that Vivien was able to do is mind blowing to any surgeon. He never went to medical school and he became one of the great teachers of medicine himself, people are just amazed. — Mary Stuart Masterson

English people don't have very good diction. In France you have to pronounce very particularly and clearly, and learning French at an early age helped me enormously. — Vivien Leigh

I've been a godmother loads of times, but being a grandmother is better than anything. — Vivien Leigh

My parents were French and Irish and our family even has Spanish blood-and I do so love the United States and consider myself part American. — Vivien Leigh

Victoria stared at her sister with a beaming smile. She was struck as always by the sense that Vivien was at once familiar and exotic. How was it possible to love someone and yet never understand her? Vivien belonged to a world so far removed from her own that it seemed impossible they had come from the same family, much less that they were twins.
Vivien was the first to break the silence. "It turns out you were right to refuse all my invitations to come to town. London is definitely not the place for you, country mouse. — Lisa Kleypas

They were strong singers, with swift minds and open good humor--arrogant enough to think they could stand on a stage and dogged enough to have done the work to get there. — Vivien Shotwell

On April 18, 1906, when that earthquake hit San Francisco and took David from her, Vivien began to speak the language of grief. She understood that grief is not neat and orderly; it does not follow any rules. Time does not heal it. Rather, time insists on passing, and as it does, grief changes but does not go away. Sometimes she could actually visualize her grief. It was a wave, a tsunami that came unexpectedly and swept her away. She could see it, a wall of pain that had grabbed hold of her and pulled her under. Some days, she could reach the air and breathe in huge comforting gulps. Some days she barely broke the surface, and still, after all this time, some days it consumed her and she wondered if there was any way free of it. — Ann Hood

Once you decide on the best poison for the termination, you must work out the correct concentration. For instance, I know that five milligrams of cetratranic acid dropped into a bell-jar with a single moth will take about three seconds to stun it. I know that seven milligrams will anaesthetize it and ten is enough to kill it, providing the moth does not weight more than 3.5 grams. I also know that to kill fifty moths you need five times the concentration or volume of killing fluid, but to kill seven thousand you'd need only two hundred times the concentration. I know that potassium chloride could never kill a larger moth and potassium sulphide would only ever be strong enough to anaesthetize it. I know that cyanide kills anything. But what I don't know right now is the precise amount I will need to kill Vivien. — Poppy Adams

He threw the plastic razor into the bin — Vivien Sparx

I'm a Scorpio, and Scorpios eat themselves out and burn themselves up like me. — Vivien Leigh

What matters to us, the judgment of men? What have we to doubt, since we are pure before life? — Renee Vivien

Some critics saw fit to say that I was a great actress. I thought that was a foolish, wicket thing to say because it put such an onus and such a responsibility onto me, which I simply wasn't able to carry. — Vivien Leigh

Vivien approached her husband, and embraced him, and planted a light kiss on his neck as they held each other against the darkness. Then she bit him on the neck. Blood came in great, angry spurts. I vomited, briefly, and decided to put on some music. — Kevin Barry

Comedy is much more difficult than tragedy-and a much better training, I think. It's much easier to make people cry than to make them laugh. — Vivien Leigh

Tired of all her efforts at Tara, Scarlett wishes to escape too: "I do want to escape too! I'm so very tired of it all! ... The South is dead, it's dead, the Yankees and the carpetbaggers have got it and there's nothing left for us." — Vivien Leigh

There was no higher art than music and no purer musical form than song. — Vivien Shotwell

Dear Lord, I'm so grateful I'm still loved. — Vivien Leigh

Vivien felt at peace with the world as she walked away from the tattered, run down orphanage. The donation of the female robots, gifts and money she'd donated would enhance and change the children's lives, futures and provide them witj opportunities. She wasn't a Saint or a martyr but she concluded, perhaps somewhere below her hard exterior, formed through the necessity of hustling to provide for herself, perhaps there was a compassionate, unselfish person with a deep empathetic nature, that had never truly been allowed to exist or realized until this moment in time. — Jill Thrussell

I never found accents difficult, after learning languages. — Vivien Leigh

Every single night I'm nervous. — Vivien Leigh

I cannot let well enough alone. I get restless. I have to be doing different things. I am a very impatient person and headstrong. If I've made up my mind to do something, I can't be persuaded out of it — Vivien Leigh

Do you think you could stop crying for a minute? It makes conversation a bit difficult. — Vivien Alcock

Well." Vivien smiled, swinging her legs. "At least when Iain starts yelling, his accent gets thicker, so you usually can't understand a word he's ... No, don't pull that one," she stopped me suddenly. "That one I do recognize. It's some sort of a daisy, or something. — Susanna Kearsley

Sometimes I dread the truth of the lines I say. But the dread must never show. — Vivien Leigh

On the road, they join the bedraggled remnants of a column of exhausted Confederate soldiers evacuating burning Atlanta. Rhett makes her take note of the scene: "Take a good look, my dear. It's a historic moment. You can tell your grandchildren how you watched the Old South disappear one night." — Vivien Leigh

I've always been mad about cats. — Vivien Leigh

And as the train whistled its imminent departure, a small girl wearing neat plaits and someone else's shoes climbed its iron stairs. Smoke filled the platform, people waved and hollered, a stray dog ran barking through the crowds. Nobody noticed as the little girl stepped over the shadowed threshold; not even Aunt Ada, who some might've expected to be sheperherding her orphaned niece towards her uncertain future. And so, when the essence of light and life that had been Vivien Longmeyer contracted itself for safekeeping and disappeared deep inside her, the world kept moving and nobody saw it happen. — Kate Morton

Her newly revealed skin was white and luminous, her body tender and abundantly curved... He closed his eyes briefly, striving to subdue this violent passion. When he opened them again, Vivien had moved away from him and hastily climbed into bed, pulling the linens over her nakedness. Her bashfulness was so genuine, so... well, virginal, that he wondered if this was what she had been like long ago, before embarking on her career as a courtesan.
"Don't cover yourself," he murmured. "Your body is too beautiful to be concealed."
The bedsheets did not lower an in inch. "I'm cold," she said breathlessly, her cheeks flushed.
"I'll warm you," he promised with a quick grin, stripping off his coat. — Lisa Kleypas

I loved fencing and dancing and elocution. — Vivien Leigh

Vivien Leigh was a phenomenal actress, a very complicated woman, living on the edge of mental problems, haunted by demons and angels. And though I've never thought of myself like Marilyn Monroe, I was inspired by the tremendous risk she took - of being vulnerable. — Rebecca De Mornay

In Britain, an attractive woman is somehow suspect. If there is talent as well, it is overshadowed. Beauty and brains just can't be entertained; someone has been too extravagant. This does not happen in America or on the Continent, for the looks of a woman are considered a positive advertisement for her gifts and don't detract from them. — Vivien Leigh

I am a mediocre being, a bit cunning. — Renee Vivien

I know I am right for Scarlett. I can convince Mr. Selznick. — Vivien Leigh

Most of us have compromised with life. Those who fight for what they want will always thrill us. — Vivien Leigh

You can't act on an empty stomach, because you're breathing's all wrong. — Vivien Leigh

My husband, who's the greatest actor in the world, can do anything. Look at what he did in The Critic and Oedipus. In every role he gets-he did this in Richard the Third-there's nothing he can't do, nothing. Just nothing. — Vivien Leigh

People think that if you look fairly reasonable, you can't possibly act, and as I only care about acting, I think beauty can be a great handicap. — Vivien Leigh

I adore Bette Davis and Vivien Leigh, but more because they were good actresses. That's what makes me interested in them, that they didn't present themselves as idols; they were just doing their jobs. — Imelda Staunton

He noted that she sipped the wine immediately, without the usual ritual of those accustomed to sampling fine vintages... no swirling of the glass to test the aroma, or the rivulets that the English called "legs" and the French more poetically referred to as "tears." As a member of the beau monde, Vivien should have been experienced at such a ritual. However, she did not look like a worldly courtesan accustomed to the finer things in life... she looked like a sheltered, naive young woman. — Lisa Kleypas

Victoria was an innocent country gentlewoman who spent her time reading, teaching the local children, painting, gathering armfuls of heather in the meadow. Vivien, by contrast, was pleasure-loving and self-serving... with a moral compass that was most definitely skewed. — Lisa Kleypas

You know the passage where Scarlett voices her happiness that her mother is dead, so that she can't see what a bad girl Scarlett has become? Well, that's me. — Vivien Leigh

I want a homing beacon on your vehicle."
"There will be."
"No, I want one on before we leave the grounds in the morning. I'll see to it."
Give and take, she reminded herself. Even when
maybe especially when
give and take was a pain in the ass. "Okay. But there go my plans to slip off and meet Pablo the pool boy for an hour of hot, sticky sex."
"We all have to make sacrifices. Myself, I've had to reschedule my liaison with Vivien the French maid three times in the last couple of days."
"Blows," Eve said as they slipped into bed.
"She certainly does. — J.D. Robb

I need something truly beautiful to look at in hotel rooms. — Vivien Leigh

I realize that the memories I cherish most are not the first night successes, but of simple, everyday things: walking through our garden in the country after rain; sitting outside a cafe in Provence, drinking the vin de pays; staying at a little hotel in an English market town with Larry, in the early days after our marriage, when he was serving in the Fleet Air Arm, and I was touring Scotland, so that we had to make long treks to spend weekends together. — Vivien Leigh

She had the face of an angel, and the hair of the Devil's handmaiden. The freshly washed locks flowed around her in a waist-length curtain, waves and curls of molten red that contained every shade from cinnamon to strawberry-gold. It was the kind of hair that nature usually bestowed on homely women to atone for their lack of physical beauty.
But Vivien had a face and form that belonged in a Renaissance painting, except that the reality of her was more delicate and fresh than any painted image could convey. Now that her eyes were no longer swollen, the pure blue intensity of her gaze shone full and direct on him. Her mouth, tender and rose-tinted, was a marvel of nature. — Lisa Kleypas

How strange," she said, "not to recognize one's own face."
"You have no cause for complaint," Grant said huskily. Even bruised and pale and ravaged, her face was incomparable.
"Do you think so?" She stared into the looking glass without a trace of self-satisfactionshe had displayed at the ball. *That* Vivien had had no doubt of her many attractions. This woman was far less confident.
"Everyone thinks so. You're known as one of the great beauties of London."
"I don't see why." Catching his skeptical expression, she added, "Truly, I'm not fishing for compliments, it's just... seems a very ordinary face." She produced a comical, clownish expression, like a child experimenting with her reflection. A shaken laugh escaped her. "It doesn't seem to belong to me. — Lisa Kleypas

I was sent successively to schools in France, Italy and Bavaria, and this erratic education was a great help afterwards. — Vivien Leigh

I detest heavy perfume and shrill voices. — Renee Vivien

You must always steal, but only from the best people. Steal any trick that looks worthwhile. If you see Vivien Leigh or Robert DeNiro or Meryl Streep do something stunningly effective, and you can analyze how he or she did it, then pinch it. Because you can be sure that they stole it in the first place. — Michael Caine

So he stopped at the first of them, a frigid hothouse whose front tipped forward over the street in defiance of gravity, taste, and ordinance; inside, the tender daytime flowers could be seen huddling in family groups beneath a constant, unseen sun, and behind them was the hermetic door to the dark Cactus Room where the shy nocturnal plants, genus cereus, could bloom in privacy at any hour. Vivien, once out of the car, appeared less constrained. She did not have that stiffness so many have on first entering bars, that air of waiting stubbornly for alcohol to loosen them, which so often presages their manner when it comes' time for bed. She was already excited when the martinis came. — Douglas Woolf

I wanted to be like Vivien Leigh in 'Gone With the Wind.' I wanted to have black hair, green eyes and break hearts. — Terry Farrell

If only Vivien Leigh had stayed in England, that part would have been mine. — Joan Bennett

One is just an interpreter of what the playwright thinks, and therefore the greater the playwright, the more satisfying it is to act in the plays. — Vivien Leigh

So they drove again, Vivien sitting up and looking now, but as navigator only, letting the desert scratch its own thorny poetry on the enormous moon. — Douglas Woolf

In a crime there is always a perpetrator and a victim. If you look the other way, do not get involved, stay neutral, or remain silent, you will always help the perpetrator and never the victim. — Vivien Spitz

Moose Factory (I wonder if they make moose there?) — Vivien Bowers

Don't waste your one beautiful life," Vivien said softly. — Ann Hood

It was Ernie Haller, who had photographed Bette Davis in Jezebel and Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind, who was solely responsible for the visuals in Mildred Pierce, said Crawford. "Ernie was at the rehearsals. And so was Mr. [Anton] de Grot, who did the sets. I recall seeing Ernie's copy of the script and it was filled with notations and diagrams. I asked him if these were for special lights and he said, 'No, they're for special shadows.' Now, that threw me. I was a little apprehensive. I was used to the look of Metro, where everything, including the war pictures, was filmed in blazing white lights. Even if a person was dying there was no darkness. But when I saw the rushes of Mildred Pierce I realized what Ernie was doing. The shadows and half-lights, the way the sets were lit, together with the unusual angles of the camera, added considerably to the psychology of my character and to the mood and psychology of the film. And that, my dear, is film noir." "Mildred — Shaun Considine

I find suggestion a hell of a lot more provocative than explicit detail. You didn't see Clark[Gable] and Vivien[leigh] rolling around in bed in Gone With The Wind, but you saw that shit eating grin on her face the next morning and you knew damned well she'd gotten properly laid. — Joan Crawford

But Vivien wasn't being given the chance to sow her wild oats. Speaking from a point of authority, it's best to get that shit out of the way when you are young. — Lisa Lutz

I have no right to beauty. I had been condemned to masculine ugliness. — Renee Vivien

Streetcar is a most wonderful, wonderful play. — Vivien Leigh

I took a couple steps away from him and stopped in front of a framed colored poster of Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable from the movie Gone with the Wind. I studied the pair, Gable with his mysterious mustache and Leigh in her red ball gown. I'd become a fan of the classic, partially because of my mother's suggestion that I looked a lot like a younger Vivien Leigh, with my dark wavy hair and sea green eyes. And as usual, I'd believed her for a little while. — J.C. Patrick

When she's worried Vivien gives herself pedicures and facials. Nic lifts weights. I bake. So, Vivien ends up looking more glamourous. Nic gets fitter. And I just get fat. — Huntley Fitzpatrick

She seemed out of place at the Fairweather. Too posh, as Susan said. Too well dressed. She never strolled along the shore or went bathing or brought a picture postcard. She just sat on the veranda all day with a book she never read, gazing out to sea. Probably wondering why on earth she came here. Susan had said. She looks as if she'd be more at home in Monte Carlo. I know- she's lost all her money gambling and she's waiting for the sea to warm up before she throws herself in. I hope she remembers to pay her bill first. — Vivien Alcock

She looked forward to seeing him play because then she would be able to stare frankly. — Vivien Shotwell

I think she looked at Vivien the same way. Of course you can. You know. And, and yet with great respect, because she knew how hard it must have been. And that it was even harder for him, of course, than for her. — Mary Stuart Masterson

Aden St. George managed to avoid having to kill the guard stationed outside his quarry's crypt-like cell, although the thug outside the caves hadn't been so lucky. Still, that bastard had tried to knife him in the gut so Aden could hardly be faulted for returning the favor. And knowing what he did about the men who'd kidnapped Lady Vivien Shaw, he wouldn't waste his fitful conscience on that brutal but necessary act. Killing was not a favorite pastime, but only rarely did it disturb his sleep.
Tonight's rescue mission carried no inconvenient opportunities for remorse since a woman's life and innocence hung in the balance. True, the gossips whispered that Lady Vivien's innocence was an open question, but what would happen to her if Aden failed wasn't. Without his intervention she would disappear into a nightmarish life, forever beyond the protection of her family and friends. — Vanessa Kelly

A weathered cork sat inside the box lined with green velvet. It had turned a darker brown and was a little shriveled, but the name Moet & Chandon was still clearly visible.
Vivien reached inside and pulled out her mother's cork. The one she'd searched for in the bed of red impatiens. To anyone else, it was nothing. Just a weathered piece of nothing. To Vivien, it was everything. — Rachel Gibson

I have just made out my will and given all the things I have and many that I haven't. — Vivien Leigh

I am going to be a great actress. — Vivien Leigh

I always know my lines. — Vivien Leigh

I never sleep for more than five hours, hardly ever. — Vivien Leigh

I will not be ignored. — Vivien Leigh

My brunette with the golden eyes, your ivory body, your amber
Has left bright reflections in the room
Above the garden.
The clear midnight sky, under my closed lids,
Still shines ... I am drunk from so many roses
Redder than wine.
Leaving their garden, the roses have followed me ...
I drink their brief breath, I breathe their life.
All of them are here.
It's a miracle ... The stars have risen,
Hastily, across the wide windows
Where the melted gold pours.
Now, among the roses and the stars,
You, here in my room, loosening your robe,
And your nakedness glistens
Your unspeakable gaze rests on my eyes ...
Without stars and without flowers, I dream the impossible
In the cold night. — Renee Vivien

Vivien liked men. She liked looking at the handsome ones and talking to the intelligent ones. But they did little to spark her romantic sensibilities, and she'd always found that rather depressing. — Vanessa Kelly

My parents were absolutely delighted that I knew what I wanted to do. — Vivien Leigh

Felicity was more romantic. She's waiting for her lover. He's a sailor and she's watching for his ship to come in. Nobody's dared tell her it's been wrecked and her lover is at the bottom of the sea. She'll go on waiting and waiting until her red hair turns as white as his bones- Good. — Vivien Alcock

A lucky thing Eva Peron was. She died at 32. I'm already 45. — Vivien Leigh

My birth sign is Scorpio and they eat themselves up and burn themselves out. I swing between happiness and misery. I am part prude and part nonconformist. I say what I think and I don't pretend, and I am prepared to accept the consequences of my actions. — Vivien Leigh

In a way, a man's life depended on the china horse. Or at least on the breaking of the china horse. — Vivien Alcock

Shaw is like a train. One just speaks the words and sits in one's place. But Shakespeare is like bathing in the sea - one swims where one wants. — Vivien Leigh