“I’m a tough old broad from Brooklyn. I intend to go on acting until I’m ninety, and they won’t need to paste my face with make-up.”

Eyes are the greatest tool in film. Mr. Capra taught me that. Sure it’s nice to say very good dialogue, if you can get it. But great movie acting – watch the eyes!

The boy’s got a lot to learn and I’ve got a lot to teach.

I couldn’t remember my name for weeks. I’d be at the theater and hear them calling ‘Miss Stanwyck, Miss Stanwyck,’ and I’d think ‘Where is that dame? Why doesn’t she answer? By crickie, it’s me!

Attention embarrasses me. I don’t like to be on display.

Put me in the last fifteen minutes of a picture and I don’t care what happened before. I don’t even care if I was IN the rest of the damned thing – I’ll take it in those fifteen minutes.

My only problem is finding a way to play my fortieth fallen female in a different way from my thirty-ninth.

It’s perhaps not the future I would choose. I still think it’s possible to make a success of both marriage and career even though I didn’t. But it’s not a bad future. And I’m not afraid of it.

There is a point in portraying surface vulgarity where tragedy and comedy are very close.

[On a dull party:] It was a fête worse than death.

I’m a tough old broad from Brooklyn. Don’t try to make me into something I’m not. If you want someone to tiptoe down the Barkley staircase in crinoline and politely ask where the cattle went, get another girl.

I’m now the Lord of the Brighton Manor.

Egotism – usually just a case of mistaken nonentity.

Just be truthful – and if you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

Sponsors obviously care more about a ninety-second commercial and want to pay you more than any guest star gets for a ninety-minute acting performance.

Career is too pompous a word. It was a job, and I have always felt privileged to be paid for doing what I love doing.

A star is only as good as her last picture.

How can you measure acting in inches?

I feel that one of the hardest things in acting is the way you need to switch your emotions.

My mom didn’t ever think I would take to acting because I was a very shy, very reserved kind of child. But obviously, something changed!

A successful film is a good film, and a non-successful film is a bad film. It’s as simple as that.

Well, my brother started acting before I did.

Every film for every actor is a make-or-break film. I believe every film has the power to break you or make you. So, an actor will treat every film like his last film.

I don’t come to work as an actor. There are many directors who can direct without ever having acted and do a great job and connect with their actors and lead them to excellent performances without themselves having had an acting background.

I never really wanted to write and wanted to focus on acting.