I refuse the title of artist to those who owe their reputations to a physical deformity. I regard them as buffoons.
Energy creates energy. It is by spending myself that I become rich.
We ought to hate very rarely, as it is too fatiguing; remain indifferent to a great deal, forgive often and never forget.
What matters poverty? What matters anything to him who is enamoured of our art? Does he not carry in himself every joy and every beauty?
Art is not about something, Art is something.
He who is incapable of feeling strong passions, of being shaken by anger, of living in every sense of the word, will never be a good actor.
If I have a foreign accent – which I much regret – it is cosmopolitan, but not Teutonic. I am a daughter of the great Jewish race, and my somewhat uncultivated language is the outcome of our enforced wanderings.
One should hate very little, because it’s extremely fatiguing. One should despise much, forgive often and never forget. Pardon does not bring with it forgetfulness; at least not for me.
I adore Chicago. It is the pulse of America.
The dramatic art would appear to be rather a feminine art; it contains in itself all the artifices which belong to the province ofwoman: the desire to please, facility to express emotions and hide defects, and the faculty of assimilation which is the real essence of woman.
Those who know the joys and miseries of celebrities when they have passed the age of forty know how to defend themselves.
The truth, the absolute truth, is that the chief beauty for the theatre consists in fine bodily proportions.
I have, thanks to my travels, added to my stock all the superstitions of other countries. I know them all now, and in any critical moment of my life, they all rise up in armed legions for or against me.
What would life be without art? Science prolongs life. To consist of what-eating, drinking, and sleeping? What is the good of living longer if it is only a matter of satisfying the requirements that sustain life? All this is nothing without the charm of art.
New ideas come into this world somewhat like falling meteors, with a flash and an explosion, and perhaps somebody’s castle-roof perforated.
Slow down? Rest? With all eternity before me?
You must have this charm to reach the pinnacle. It is made of everything and of nothing, the striving will, the look, the walk, the proportions of the body, the sound of the voice, the ease of the gestures. It is not at all necessary to be handsome or to be pretty; all that is needful is charm.
Me pray? Never! I’m an atheist.
Mamma used to stay at home with her sweet friend, Madame Guerard. She used to read novels whilst Madame Guerard embroidered. They would sit there together without speaking, each dreaming her own dream, seeing it fade away, and beginning it over again.