Remember what Bogie and my mother both used to say: ‘Character is the most important thing. All that matters is character!’
A woman isn’t complete without a man. But where do you find a man – a real man – these days?
I finally felt that I came into my own when I went on the stage.
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.
You can’t always be a leading lady.
Patience was not my strong point.
We live in an age of mediocrity.
I don’t sit around thinking that I’d like to have another husband; only another man would make me think that way.
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.
Actors today go into TV, which I don’t consider has a lot to do with acting.
I think I’m damn lucky. I’m lucky that my kids are all straight, that they haven’t ended up in jail, that they’re all worthwhile human beings, thank God. Their lives are happy; they have happy partners, wives, husbands.
Half of life’s problems disappear when one’s head is healthy.
I believe in the truth, and I believe in saying what you think. Why not? Do you have to go around whispering all the time or playing a game with people? I just don’t believe in that. So I’m not the most adored person on the face of the earth. You have to know this. There are a lot of people who don’t like me at all, I’m very sure of that. But I wasn’t put on earth to be liked. I have my own reasons for being and my own sense of what is important and what isn’t, and I’m not going to change that.
Childhood anxieties, childhood fears, never disappear entirely. They fade, but not away.
My every dream and hope, and far beyond, were to be realized. I couldn’t have wished for a man as incredibly good as this man was. And even so I didn’t realize every quality of Bogie’s on that day. He was to surprise and delight me continually in the ensuing years.
From my own self-analysis, which I seldom indulge in, I am what I am.
Facing a situation head on was the only way to deal with anything. I learned the lesson early.
There is always the fear that a wonder of the world can’t live up to expectations. Not so. The Taj Mahal was breathtakingly beautiful – if anything, better even than I’d been told. Beauty like that is too dazzling to be imagined.
But the amazing thing about life, I’ve finally discovered, is that you really don’t learn from past mistakes. You do logically, reasonably, but emotionally not for a second.
The best thing about dreams is that youth holds on to them.