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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I travel in so many different ways; I travel high, I rough it, it all depends on who I travel with.

No day copies yesterday, no two nights will teach what bliss is in precisely the same way, with precisely the same kisses.

There are many ways of supporting gender equality, from something as simple as paid sick leave and flexible work hours to attributing an economic value to all care-giving, and making that amount tax deductible.

I believe a unique core self is born into every human being; the result of millennia of environment and heredity combined in an unpredictable way that could never happen before or again.

[on sexual politics] The Golden Rule works for men as written, but for women it should go the other way around. We need to do unto ourselves as we do unto others.

Creating is a lonely thing in a lot of ways.

The way to be successful in Hollywood is to be as obnoxious as the next guy.

That’s just the way life is. We have to be willing to pay the price. You have to be willing to pay the price for what’s right – and for what we do wrong. That’s one of the things that I love about my son. My son was always willing to take his weight.