Art is not about something, Art is something

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.

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?

Once the curtain is raised, the actor is ceases to belong to himself. He belongs to his character, to his author, to his public. He must do the impossible to identify himself with the first, not to betray the second, and not to disappoint the third.

[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.

Energy creates energy. It is by spending myself that I become rich.

We ought to hate very rarely, as it is too fatiguing; remain indifferent to a great deal, forgive often and never forget.