Talk:Lauren Bacall

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• 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.

• A woman isn't complete without a man. But where do you find a man — a real man — these days? ... Find me a man who's interesting enough to have dinner with and I'll be happy.

• Generally women are better than men — they have more character. I prefer men for some things, obviously, but women have a greater sense of honor and are more willing to take a chance with their lives.

• I am essentially a loner.

• I am not a has-been. I am a will be.
  • Variant: I'm not a has-been. I'm a will-be.

• I don't sit around thinking that I'd like to have another husband; only another man would make me think that way.

• I figure if I have my health, can pay the rent and I have my friends, I call it 'content.'

• I loved to dream about other worlds and other lives.
  • On childhood dreams of becoming an actress

• 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".

• I wish Frank Sinatra would just shut up and sing.

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

• I'm not the public.
  • After being told that a store was not open to the public

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

• It was 1944. I was 19, brand new in Hollywood and under personal contract to director Howard Hawks. Now, Howard had told me he wanted me to be in a movie with either Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart. I thought, "Wow, Cary Grant!" I'd already tested for To Have And Have Not and was going to be in it with, of course, Bogey's approval. One day, I was going into Hawks' office and Bogey was on his way out. As he passed he said, "By the way, I saw your test, we will have a lot of fun together." Well, he was right about that!

• Let people push you around, and you deserve whatever bad things happen after that.

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

• Stardom isn't a profession; it's an accident.

• The purity of Jewish upbringing is the restrictions that one carries through life being a "nice Jewish girl" — what a burden!

• They're guys who want to screw around all the time, which interests me not at all. God knows we've done that, been there, and we don't want to do that any more.

• When a woman reaches twenty-six in America, she's on the slide. It's downhill all the way from then on. It doesn't give you a tremendous feeling of confidence and well-being.

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

Quotes of others about Bacall

Alphabetized by author

• Lauren Bacall has cinema personality to burn. She has a javelin-like vitality, a born dancer’s eloquence of movement, a fierce female shrewdness, and a special sweet-sourness. With these faculties, plus a stone-crushing self-confidence and a trombone voice, she manages to get across the toughest girl Hollywood has dreamed of in a long, long while.
  • James Agee

• Slinky as a lynx, hot as pepper, cool as rain, dry as smoke. There’s considerably more to her than staying sexy at 60.
  • Ros Asquith in The London Observer on Bacall’s performance in Sweet Bird of Youth

• Baby's a real Joe.
  • Humphrey Bogart

• Even today, seeing her from a distance on a city street, striding easily with head thrown back, you would know why she interested Bogart from the day they met. She was no ordinary girl then, just as today she is no ordinary woman. In fact, she is an extraordinary one.
  • Joe Hyams