229 Quotes by 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.

Actors today go into TV, which I don’t consider has a lot to do with acting. They only think of stardom. If you photograph well, that’s enough. I have a terrible time distinguishing one from another. Girls wear their hair the same, and are much too anorexic-looking.

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 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.

Isn’t hope an incredible, a wonderfully demented thing?

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.

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

All actors are terrified – they just learn how to control it.

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. You have to know this. There are a lot of people who don’t like me at all, I’m very sure of that. But I wasn’t put on earth to be liked. I have my own reasons for being and my own sense of what is important and what isn’t, and I’m not going to change that.