Lauren Bacall

“It's inappropriate and vulgar and absolutely unacceptable to use your private life to sell anything commercially.”

“You can't start worrying about what's going to happen. You get spastic enough worrying about what's happening now.”

“I used to tremble from nerves so badly that the only way I could hold my head steady was to lower my chin practically to my chest and look up at Bogie. That was the beginning of The Look.”

“If I could have lived as an actress in any period, it would have been the 1920s - I would have loved to have been part of that speakeasy era.”

“You can't always be a leading lady.”

“I was this kid, and I was scared to death of all these pros around me... My head would shake, and my hands would shake, and I discovered if I kept my head down and looked up, my head would not shake, so I started to do that when I could, when it was appropriate in a scene.”

“I don't consider myself a great actress. I'm just trying to stay alive, actually. I think I'm good, and I've learned a lot, certainly, mostly in the theater. I've been sloughed off movies for years. But what can you do? That's life.”

“I was never my favourite subject.”

“You can't acquire a voice. Either you have it, or you don't.”

“When everything happens to you when you're so young, you're very lucky, but by the same token, you're never going to have that same feeling again. The first time anything happens to you - your first love, your first success - the second one is never the same.”

“In actual fact, I've never been one, even from childhood, to kind of analyze myself very much.”

“I am essentially a loner.”

“Imagination is the highest kite that can fly.”

“I used to dream of being other places, other people. It was an escape for me.”