Lauren Bacall Quotes

"She's a real Joe. You'll fall in love with her like everybody else." -
Humphrey Bogart

"I never believed marriage was a lasting institution... I thought that to be married for five years was to be married forever."

"I was this flat-chested, big-footed, lanky thing."

"I don't think being the only child of a single parent helped. I was always a little unsteady in my self-belief. Then there was the Jewish thing. I love being Jewish, I have no problem with it at all. But it did become like a scar, with all these people saying you don't look it."

"I remember my oldest son, Steve, saying to me once, 'I don't ever remember seeing you with an apron on.' And I thought, that's right, honey, you did not. That was his concept of what a mother should be."

"I would hate now [2005] to be married. It does occur to me on occasion that, if I fall and hit my head, there will be no one to make the phone call. But who wants to think about that disaster, I'd prefer not to."

"I am still working, I've never stopped and, while my health holds out, I won't stop."

"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."

"Actors today go into TV, which I don't consider has a lot to do with acting. They only think of stardom. If you photograph well, that's enough. I have a terrible time distinguishing one from another. Girls wear their hair the same, and are much too anorexic-looking."

"We live in an age of mediocrity. Stars today are not the same stature as Bogie (
Humphrey Bogart),
James Cagney,
Spencer Tracy,
Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart (
James Stewart)."

"A legend involves the past. I don't like categories. This one is great and that one is great. The word great stands for something. 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."

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