Katharine Hepburn quotes:

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  • If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.

  • My greatest strength is common sense. I'm really a standard brand - like Campbell's tomato soup or Baker's chocolate.

  • Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get - only with what you are expecting to give - which is everything.

  • The average Hollywood film star's ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend.

  • Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.

  • Acting is a nice childish profession - pretending you're someone else and, at the same time, selling yourself.

  • Why slap them on the wrist with feather when you can belt them over the head with a sledgehammer.

  • Never complain. Never explain.

  • Bogart was like Henry Fonda - proud and happy to be an actor.

  • We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers - but never blame yourself. It's never your fault. But it's always your fault, because if you wanted to change you're the one who has got to change.

  • Life is hard. After all, it kills you.

  • I would have been a terrible mother because I'm basically a very selfish human being. Not that that has stopped most people going off and having children.

  • Only the really plain people know about love - the very fascinating ones try so hard to create an impression that they soon exhaust their talents.

  • Plain women know more about men than beautiful women do.

  • I have many regrets, and I'm sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret... if you have any sense, and if you don't regret them, maybe you're stupid.

  • Acting is the perfect idiot's profession.

  • It's a business you go into because your an egocentric. It's a very embarrassing profession.

  • I wear my sort of clothes to save me the trouble of deciding which clothes to wear.

  • I've made forty-three pictures. Naturally I'm adorable in all of them.

  • There are no laurels in life, just new challenges.

  • Marriage is a series of desperate arguments people feel passionately about.

  • The thing about life is that you must survive. Life is going to be difficult, and dreadful things will happen. What you do is move along, get on with it, and be tough. Not in the sense of being mean to others, but being tough with yourself and making a deadly effort not to be defeated.

  • It's life isn't it? You plow ahead and make a hit. And you plow on and someone passes you. Then someone passes them. Time levels.

  • If you follow all of the rules, you'll miss all of the fun.

  • I don't regret anything I've ever done; as long as I enjoyed it at the time

  • If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting.

  • The calla lilies are in bloom again.

  • When I started out, I didn't have any desire to be an actress or to learn how to act. I just wanted to be famous.

  • To be loved is very demoralizing

  • I would have made a terrible parent. The first time my child didn't do what I wanted, I'd kill him.

  • Dressing up is a bore. At a certain age, you decorate yourself to attract the opposite sex, and at a certain age, I did that. But I'm past that age.

  • I can remember walking as a child. It was not customary to say you were fatigued. It was customary to complete the goal of the expedition.

  • To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.

  • "Isn't it fun getting older?" is really a terrible fallacy. That's like saying I prefer driving an old car with a flat tire.

  • What you see before you, my friend, is the result of a lifetime of chocolate.

  • If you need a helping hand, you can find one at the end of your arm.

  • I think all good actors are personalities. If they're not, they're not stars. What makes you a star is horsepower.

  • Being a housewife and a mother is the biggest job in the world, but if it doesn't interest you, don't do it - I would have made a terrible mother.

  • I don't give a damn about marriage. But I do care about honor.

  • I love rain. It's lucky, I always think.

  • You don't pick who you fall in love with. There are so few people to love. It's hard for one adult to even like another. Almost impossible.

  • Without discipline, there's no life at all.

  • Death will be a great relief. No more interviews.

  • Two of an actress's greatest assets are love and pain. A great actress, even a good actress, must have plenty of both in her life.

  • What the hell-you might be right, you might be wrong...but don't just avoid.

  • My, I like Judy Holliday! She looks like a Monet model. And she's so - so defenseless. I like defenseless people. They're the best.

  • I think everyone is an opportunist if they have an opportunity.

  • I'm a legend because I've survived over a long period of time and still seem to be master of my fate - I'm still paddling the goddamned boat myself.

  • As for me, prizes are nothing. My prize is my work.

  • It's a rather rude gesture, but at least it's clear what you mean.

  • Enemies are so stimulating.

  • I am an atheist and that's it. I believe there's nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for other people.

  • Now how can anybody look at that and not believe in God? I mean, how can anybody look at this and not believe there is some higher power, some divine force at work in the universe greater than Man, some god that created it, that created all this, that created us?

  • Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get - only with what you are expecting to give - which is everything

  • I think most of the people involved in any art always secretly wonder whether they are really there because they're good or there because they're lucky.

  • If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun.

  • A sharp knife cuts the quickest and hurts the least.

  • I like to move fast, and wearing high heels was tough, and low heels with a skirt is unattractive. So pants took over.

  • Trying to be fascinating is an asinine position to be in.

  • Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting. And you don't do that by sitting around.

  • I never realized until lately that women were supposed to be the inferior sex.

  • If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.

  • Acting is the most minor of gifts. After all, Shirley Temple could do it when she was four.

  • To be loved is very demoralizing.

  • A boy sows a wild oat or two, the world winks. A girl does the same -- scandal.

  • Afraid of death? Not at all. Be a great relief. Then I wouldn't have to talk to you.

  • All my life, I've stayed at parties too long because I didn't know when to go.

  • As one goes through life, one learns that if you don't paddle your own canoe, you don't move.

  • Being an actor is such a humiliating experience because you are selling yourself to the public, your face, your personality, and that is humiliating. As you get older, it becomes more humiliating because you've got less to sell.

  • Children need boundaries, so they can know how far they have to go to get beyond them.

  • Cold sober, I find myself absolutely fascinating.

  • Don't give in! Make your own trail. Don't moan. Don't complain. Think positively.

  • Don't moan, don't whine, don't blame. Just get on with it.

  • Everyone thought I was bold and fearless and even arrogant, but inside I was always quaking.

  • Few people know what they mean when they say, "I love you." ... Well, what does the word love mean? It means total interest. I think the reason very few people really fall in love with anyone is they're not willing to pay the price. The price is you have to adjust yourself to them.

  • Friendship, if somebody holds out his hand toward you, you've got to reach and take it... There are too many people alone, and if you're lucky enough for somebody to want you as a friend, it's an obligation.

  • He's worked his entire life and he's never lived a single moment, I mean not a moment, in the real world.

  • I always wanted to be a movie actress. I thought it was very romantic. And it was.

  • I am a total me, me, Me person.

  • I believe how I act today will affect how I am tomorrow.

  • I can't say I believe in prizes. I was a whiz in the three-legged race - that's something you CAN win.

  • I could peel you like a pear and god himself would see the justice in it.

  • I don't believe in marriage. It's bloody impractical. 'To love, honor, and obey.' If it weren't, you wouldn't have to sign a contract.

  • I don't believe in religion. I believe the example of Christ. I believe in the example of a perfect human being that if you can live for other people away from yourself you will be happy. If you live for yourself you will be unhappy and then you will not be able to sleep or do anything else... finally. I think insofar, and I really believe this, insofar as people do live with the other fellow [God] in mind, they have to be happy you know? Because it raises you up.

  • I don't care WHAT the say about me, as long as it's not the truth

  • I don't fear death, it must be like a long sleep.

  • I don't feel the slightest interest in the next world; I think it's here. And I think anything good that you're going to do, you should do for other people here and not so you can try to have a happy time in the next world.

  • I don't think that work ever really destroyed anybody. I think that lack of work destroys them a hell of a lot more.

  • I find a woman's point of view much grander and finer than a man's.

  • I have always lived my life exactly as I wanted. I've tried to please no one but myself... but I'm entirely content. I can sit back in my old age and not regret a single moment, not wish to change a single thing. It's what I wish for you...a life with no regrets.

  • I have had twenty years of perfect companionship with a man among men. He is a rock and a protection. I have never regretted it.

  • I have loved and been in love. There's a big difference.

  • I have no romantic feelings about age. Either you are interesting at any age or you are not. There is nothing particularly interesting about being old - or being young, for that matter.

  • I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man. I've just done what I damn well wanted to, and I've made enough money to support myself, and ain't afraid of being alone

  • I loved Spencer Tracy. I would have done anything for him.

  • I never lose sight of the fact that just being is fun.

  • I realised long ago that skirts are hopeless. Anytime I hear a man say he prefers a woman in a skirt, I say, 'Try one. Try a skirt.'

  • I remember as a child going around with "Votes For Women" balloons. I learnt early what it is to be snubbed for a good cause.

  • I think the reason that very few people really fall in love with anyone is that they're not willing to pay the price.

  • I thought, can you think of any really good reason not to do it? Except that, oh, I'm so shy, or oh, my private life, or oh, are they going to find out how boring I am? You know? And that was the only reason now, in a sense, not to do television. Because it certainly is a method of expression, which has to be accepted as these things come along.

  • I was born lucky, and I have lived lucky. What I had was used. What I still have is being used. Lucky.

  • I was brought up by two extremely intelligent people who gave me the greatest gift that man can give anyone, and that is freedom from fear.

  • I was fearless...and lawless.

  • I welcome death. In death there are no interviews!

  • I won't go to a restaurant to eat with friends, always join them afterwards for coffee. In company I always get over enthusiastic, and this leads to indigestion.

  • If it interests you, they don't have to pay you. It's a fascinating business anyway-it's very nice to be paid-but when you do thrilling material, it's like buying a piece of furniture that's really good.

  • If you have fame, you never feel that you have fame, if you have the brains of a flea. Because fame is something that's over back of you. It ain't ahead.... Not ahead at all. I mean, if you've done it that's great, but "what are you going to do now?" is the only thing that matters.

  • If you lead a public life, people are much more on to you than you think.

  • If you survive long enough, you're revered-rather like an old building.

  • If you want to change attitudes, start with a change in behavior.

  • If you're given a choice between money and sex appeal, take the money. As you get older, the money will become your sex appeal.

  • I'm an atheist, and that's it. I believe there's nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for people.

  • I'm what is known as gradually disintegrating. I don't fear the next world, or anything. I don't fear hell, and I don't look forward to heaven.

  • In some ways I've lived my life like a man, made my own decisions, etc. I've been as terrified as the next person, but you've got to keep going.

  • It is the ordinary woman who knows something about love; the gorgeous ones are too busy being gorgeous.

  • It is the plain women who know about love; the beautiful women are too busy being fascinating.

  • It would be a terrific innovation if you could get your mind to stretch a little further than the next wisecrack.

  • It's a bore - B-O-R-E - when you find you've begun to rot.

  • It's a new low for actresses when you have to wonder what is between her ears instead of her legs.

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