What matters poverty? What matters anything to him who is enamoured of our art? Does he not carry in himself every joy and every beauty?

For the theatre one needs long arms... an artiste with short arms can never make a fine gesture.

[When asked at age 79 why her Paris apartment was located up many flights of stairs at the top of the building:] It's the only way I can still make the hearts of men beat faster.

Your words are my food, your breath my wine. You are everything to me.

Me pray? Never! I'm an atheist.

I have often been asked why I am so fond of playing male parts. As a matter of fact, it is not male parts, but male brains that I prefer.

Alas, we are the victims of advertisement. Those who taste the joys and sorrows of fame when they have passed forty, know how to look after themselves. They know what is concealed beneath the flowers, and what the gossip, the calumnies, and the praise are worth. But as for those who win fame when they are twenty, they know nothing, and are caught up in the whirlpool.