Lauren Bacall Quotes

I'm not a sedentary person. I've always been active.

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.

I think I'm damn lucky. I'm lucky that my kids are all straight, that they haven't ended up in jail, that they're all worthwhile human beings, thank God. Their lives are happy; they have happy partners, wives, husbands.

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.

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

Acting is a life of rejection.

I've still not gotten my choice of the best roles in the world.

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

People should tell your children what life is all about - it's about work.

I don't think being the only child of a single parent helped. 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 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!

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

How long an actress lives professionally depends on her stamina, the extent of her masochism, her imagination, and her yearning for recognition or approval.

Actors today go into TV, which I don't consider has a lot to do with acting. They only think of stardom

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

His (Frank Sinatra) attention span was not long, shall we say.

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

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.

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.

Men need to feel important. They feel better when they're with younger girls or unknown girls.

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.

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

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.

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

I'll miss Hollywood. Of the twenty friends I thought I had, I'll miss the six I really had.

The reason you get married is to be together, not to be separated.

"My obit is going to be full of Bogart, I'm sure," she says, adding, "I'll never know if that's true. If that's the way it is, that's the way it is."

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

I had a lot of frustrations about my career. A lot of, you know, times where I felt I should've been considered for a part that I wasn't considered for.

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

Life is not what you expected it to be.

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

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

My son tells me, 'Do you realize you are the last one? The last person who was an eyewitness to the golden age?' Young people, even in Hollywood, ask me, 'Were you really married to Humphrey Bogart?' 'Well, yes, I think I was,' I reply. You realize yourself when you start reflecting - because I don't live in the past, although your past is so much a part of what you are - that you can't ignore it. But I don't look at scrapbooks. I could show you some, but I'd have to climb ladders, and I can't climb

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.

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

Always I'm feeling, 'You're never going to work again.' That's going to happen one day, but I hope I'm not alive.

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