“Being called very, very difficult is the beginning of success. Until you’re called very, very difficult you’re really nobody at all.”

You should know me well enough by now to know I don’t ask for things I don’t think I can get.

I never did pal around with actresses. Their talk usually bored me to tears.

Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.

Without wonder and insight, acting is just a trade. With it, it becomes creation.

I am doomed to an eternity of compulsive work. No set goal achieved satisfies. Success only breeds a new goal. The golden apple devoured has seeds. It is endless.

Almost as many inhumanities are committed in the name of love as in the name of religion.

I think men have got to change an awful lot. They still prefer the little woman.

Getting old is not for sissies.

I am a woman meant for a man, but I never found a man who could compete.

There’s only one way to work — like hell.

There was more good acting at Hollywood parties than ever appeared on the screen.

Women are the essential part of the theater but the writers are not writing about women. I think they’re too perplexed about the whole female situation probably.

She’s the original good time who was had by all.

Home is where you go to when you’ve nowhere to go.

Temperament is something that is an integral part of the artist. Not temper, temperament. There is a vast difference.

It has been my experience that one cannot, in any shape or form, depend on human relations for lasting reward. It is only work that truly satisfies.

You don’t build character sitting on the couch! You have to put in the work.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

People come, people go – they’ll drift in and out of your life, almost like characters in a favorite book.

Authenticity is about being true to who you are, even when everyone around you wants you to be someone else

Don’t think for a moment that I’m really like any of the characters I’ve played. I’m not. That’s why it’s called ‘acting’.

I have not need to promise what I cannot do.

Grief does not change you, It reveals you.

I think you’re bound to get a sense of any character that you play. It’s not something you often do in comedy.