Mercedes McCambridge
I'd never been in play long enough for the flowers to die in the dressing room.Collection: Funny
My second marriage had a lot to do with alcohol.Collection: Marriage
I never wanted a Guardian Angel. I didn't ask for one. One was assigned to me.
Like many alcoholics, I was a staggering woman in a chic apartment, sick and utterly disgusting.
Joan Crawford is a movie queen. I had never met one before. I know now what I don't want to be.
I'm glad I am a woman who once danced naked in the Mediterranean Sea at midnight.
A rich man can afford to be generous to many.
My name is real, which probably explains why I never became a superstar... how would that look in lights?
I find it next to impossible to remain politely silent when people prate to me about the glory of being given another chance to live happily ever after!
I think The Exorcist was the hardest work I've ever done.
Alcohol is a very patient drug. It will wait for the alcoholic to pick it up one more time.
If I have to climb to heaven on a ladder, I shall decline the invitation.
I was taught to be anti-Jewish.
I'd stand in line for Confession with old people and little kids, and as the line moved up, I knew when I got into the box that I would lie! Again!
Most people call me Mercy. I like it.
The great people I've met always have time for the niceties.
I don't think the Hollywood community is interested in what I can do. That's all right. I've never looked for a job in my life, and I'm not going to start now. I have plenty to keep me busy.
Aside from my son, no person has ever shown for me the gentle concern I knew from Governor Adlai Stevenson.
At awards time, The Exorcist was nominated in 11 categories, everybody but the janitor was up for an Oscar. There was no category for what I did.
I am responsible for no one but myself.
I am rich from the bequests other gifted people have seen fit to leave to me.
I believe in joy, but I believe in the flip-side, agony.
I can choose to accelerate my disease to an alcoholic death or incurable insanity, or I can choose to live within my thoroughly human condition.
I can only know what love is insofar as I can feel it.
I cannot sustain hate for longer than a couple of years.
I don't think I should have been married... to anybody.
I have always had a lot more trouble with my truths than with my deceits.
I have no use for people who hunt for what they call sport.
I have reached a state in life where I can buy a whole house full of chairs and can bump into them until they are black and blue.
I lose all control after two drinks of anything.
I loved playing the part of the feisty Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker.
I've always had bronchitis. I've been administered the Sacrament of Death three times for it.
It is a remarkably beautiful piece of home furnishing, the Oscar. I used to keep it up in front of a mirror so that it looked like two.
My admiration for the phenomenon of Alcoholics Anonymous is boundless.
My only true harmony lies deep within my soul, wherever that is. I know that somehow I am in tune with the universe.
Neiman-Marcus is one thing, and the Dallas Cowboys are another.
One of the cruelest judgments sustained against me is that I have spoken out as a recovered alcoholic to stimulate my acting career.
Only a certain breed of actor should ever even try to work for Orson Welles. I'm glad I'm one of that breed.
So many people have really wanted to die. They seem ashamed to say so. I think it would help if they would say so.
There are zillions of people who say that alcoholism is a disease, but not many of them believe it.
When I am rehearsing for a play, I try to read nothing that might distract my concentration from the work in progress.
With two leftover husbands to account for, my wicked soul has just about shriveled and died.
Young Jimmy Dean fell off the world as suddenly as he had come.
My anger made me drink as an escape from reality, a way of forgetting. But you don't know when the medicinal effect ends and the poisoning begins ... This is my sixth year of sobriety. Overcoming alcoholism has been my greatest challenge and my greatest reward.Collection: Reality
the Irish ... are full of the fear of the Lord and the joy of living, and they don't know how to combine the two, but they'll sure have a good time trying.Collection: Two
Radio is truly the theater of the mind. The listener constructs the sets, colors them from his own palette, and sculpts and costumes the characters who perform in them.Collection: Character
So many people have really wanted to die. They seem ashamed to say so. I think it would help if they would say soCollection: Thinking
I'd never been in play long enough for the flowers to die in the dressing roomCollection: Funny
It is said that people learn to hate each other because of little things ... not big ones. I know I have always learned to love because of little things ... I'm not at all sure that there are any big ones.Collection: Hate
I think The Exorcist was the hardest work I've ever doneCollection: Thinking