The artist's personality must be left in his dressing-room; his soul must be denuded of its own sensations and clothed with the base or noble qualities he is called upon to exhibit.... [he] must leave behind him the cares and vexations of life, throw aside his personality for several hours, and move in the dream of another life, forgetting everything.

Those who know the joys and miseries of celebrities when they have passed the age of forty know how to defend themselves.

The truth, the absolute truth, is that the chief beauty for the theatre consists in fine bodily proportions.

I refuse the title of artist to those who owe their reputations to a physical deformity. I regard them as buffoons.

The dramatic art would appear to be rather a feminine art; it contains in itself all the artifices which belong to the province ofwoman: the desire to please, facility to express emotions and hide defects, and the faculty of assimilation which is the real essence of woman.

Art is not about something, Art is something

One should hate very little, because it's extremely fatiguing. One should despise much, forgive often and never forget. Pardon does not bring with it forgetfulness; at least not for me.