Quotes from Lauren Bacall


Sorted by Popularity


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


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


Movies are great fun and wonderful when they're good. But you never get to see them till six months after they're finished. So you never get a sense of whether they're really well liked or how good they are. And you don't really know what the finished product is going to be like, because it's a director's medium.


I loved reading Grimm's fairy tales and Hans Christian Andersen, and I loved to dream about other worlds and other lives. Maybe that has something to do with having an incomplete family, being an only child. All I know is I loved to pretend, and all that was in tandem with my wanting to be an actress.


You can't always be a leading lady.


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 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.


Looking at yourself in a mirror isn't exactly a study of life.


In Hollywood, an equitable divorce settlement means each party getting fifty percent of publicity.


There were times, sure, I wanted my career to go better. But once it starts to go downhill, you can never get back, or only to some degree.


A woman isn't complete without a man. But where do you find a man - a real man - these days?


You are welcoming to everyone when you're a liberal. You do not have a small mind.


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


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


When everything happens to you when you're so young, you're very lucky, but by the same token, you're never going to have that same feeling again. The first time anything happens to you - your first love, your first success - the second one is never the same.


You learn to rise above a lot of bad things that happen in your life. And you have to keep going.


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


Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.


I was this kid, and I was scared to death of all these pros around me... My head would shake, and my hands would shake, and I discovered if I kept my head down and looked up, my head would not shake, so I started to do that when I could, when it was appropriate in a scene.


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.