Tallulah Bankhead
I have three phobias which, could I mute them, would make my life as slick as a sonnet, but as dull as ditch water: I hate to go to bed, I hate to get up, and I hate to be alone.Collection: Alone
Television could perform a great service in mass education, but there's no indication its sponsors have anything like this on their minds.Collection: Education
If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.Collection: Funny
The less I behave like Whistler's mother the night before, the more I look like her the morning after.Collection: Morning
I read Shakespeare and the Bible, and I can shoot dice. That's what I call a liberal education.Collection: Education
(On seeing a former lover for the first time in years) I thought I told you to wait in the car.Collection: Car
Only good girls keep diaries. Bad girls don't have time.
I'd rather be strongly wrong than weakly right.
I'm as pure as the driven slush.
Acting is a form of confusion.
The only thing I regret about my past is the length of it. If I had to live my life again I'd make all the same mistakes - only sooner.
It's the good girls who keep diaries; the bad girls never have the time.
Nobody can be exactly me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it.
It's one of the tragic ironies of the theatre that only one man in it can count on steady work - the night watchman.
My heart is as pure as the driven slush.
I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late start without me.
Here's a rule I recommend: Never practice two vices at once.
Nobody can be exactly like me. Even I have trouble doing it.
Acting is a form of confession.
I've been called many things, but never an intellectual.
I did what I could to inflate the rumor I was on my way to stardom. What I was on my way to, by any mathematical standards known to man, was oblivion, by way of obscurity.
There is less in this than meets the eye.
They used to photograph Shirley Temple through gauze. They should photograph me through linoleum.
If you really want to help the American theater, don't be an actress, dahling. Be an audience.
I have been absolutely hag-ridden with ambition. If I could wish to have anything in the world it would be to be free of ambition.
I think the Republican party should be placed in drydock and have the barnacles scraped off its bottom.Collection: Party
Too many of our countrymen rejoice in stupidity, look upon ignorance as a badge of honor. They condemn everything they don't understand.Collection: Ignorance
All my life I've been terrible at remembering people's names. I once introduced a friend of mine as Martini. Her name was actually Olive.Collection: Funny
My father warned me about men and booze but he never said anything about women and cocaine.Collection: Father
They aren't making mirrors like they use to.Collection: Mirrors
Fill what is empty, empty what is full, and scratch where it itches.Collection: Funny
I've tried several varieties of sex. The conventional position makes me claustrophobic, and the others either give me a stiff neck or lockjaw.Collection: Funny
I'm not childless, darling. I am childfree.Collection: Darling
Say anything about me, darling, as long as it isn't boring.Collection: Long
Bette [Davis] and I are good friends. There's nothing I wouldn't say to her face - both of them.Collection: Good Friend
If I were well behaved, I'd die of boredom.Collection: Boredom
Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it.Collection: Inspirational
I've had a man and I've had a woman, and there's got to be something better.Collection: Men
Going down on a woman gives me a stiff neck, going down on a man gives me lockjaw and conventional sex gives me claustrophobia.Collection: Sex
In my lifetime I've been to bed with men, women, and odd pieces of furniture.Collection: Men
I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late, start without me.Collection: Funny Love
[To the critic who wrote a negative review:] I am sitting in the smallest room of the house. Your review is before me. Soon it will be behind me.Collection: House
Whatever you have read I have said is almost certainly untrue, except if it is funny, in which case I definitely said it.Collection: Publicity
Cocaine isn't habit forming. I should know - I've been using it for years.Collection: Years
I'm the foe of moderation, the champion of excess.Collection: Champion
My progress reminded me of the horses in The Whip. They raced at the limit of their speed directly toward the audience. But they raced on a treadmill which canceled out their progress.Collection: Horse
Of course cocaine is not adictive, darling. I should know, I've been doing it for years.Collection: Years
A frozen daiquiri of a scorching afternoon is soothing. It makes living more tolerable.Collection: Frozen
Working on television is like being shot out of a cannon. They cram you all up with rehearsals, then someone lights a fuse and - .BANG! - there you are in someone's living room.Collection: Light
If you know your Bible and your Shakespeare and can shoot craps, you have a liberal education.Collection: Crap