Tallulah Bankhead Quotations

I'd rather be strongly wrong than weakly right.

If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.

Television could perform a great service in mass education, but there's no indication its sponsors have anything like this on their minds.

I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late start without me.

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.

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.

If you really want to help the American theater, don't be an actress, dahling. Be an audience.

Here's a rule I recommend: Never practice two vices at once.

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 read Shakespeare and the Bible, and I can shoot dice. That's what I call a liberal education.

Nobody can be exactly like me. Even I have trouble doing it.

I've been called many things, but never an intellectual.

(On seeing a former lover for the first time in years) I thought I told you to wait in the car.

Only good girls keep diaries. Bad girls don't have time.

My heart is as pure as the driven slush

The less I behave like Whistler's mother the night before, the more I look like her the morning after.

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.

Nobody can be exactly me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it.

They used to photograph Shirley Temple through gauze. They should photograph me through linoleum.

It's the good girls who keep diaries; the bad girls never have the time.

It's one of the tragic ironies of the theatre that only one man in it can count on steady work - the night watchman.

There is less in this than meets the eye.

Let's not quibble! I'm the foe of moderation, the champion of excess. If I may lift a line from a die-hard whose identity is lost in the shuffle, I'd rather be strongly wrong than weakly right..

(on why she called everyone "darling") Because all my life I've been terrible at remembering people's names. Once I introduced a friend of mine as 'Martini'. Her name was actually 'Olive'.

They made me sound as if I'd been castrated.

It's the good girls who keep the diaries; the bad girls never have time

If you know your Bible and your Shakespeare and can shoot craps, you have a liberal education.

In the theater lying is looked upon as an occupational disease.

[To the man who came up to her at a party and exclaimed effusively, 'Tallulah! I haven't seen you for 41 years!':] I thought I told you to wait in the car.

Whatever you have read I have said is almost certainly untrue, except if it is funny, in which case I definitely said it.

I have been tight as a tick! Fried as a mink! Stiff as a goat!

[On being asked in her later years if she were Tallulah:] I'm what's left of her, dahling.

I detest acting because it is sheer drudgery.

Acting is a form of confession.

Going down on a woman gives me a stiff neck, going down on a man gives me lockjaw and conventional sex gives me claustrophobia.

Wracked with a hangover I do my muttering over a Black Velvet, a union of champagne and stout. Don't be swindled into believing there's any cure for a hangover. I've tried them all: iced tomatoes, hot clam juice, brandy peaches. Like the common cold it defies solution. Time alone can stay it. The hair of the dog? That way lies folly. It's as logical as trying to put out a fire with applications of kerosene.

I'm the foe of moderation, the champion of excess. If I may lift a line from a die-hard whose identity is lost in the shuffle, 'I'd rather be strongly wrong than weakly right.'

A Republican. A Republican. That's worse than being a goddamned Communist!

I'm not childless, darling. I am childfree.

[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.

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.

It's unlikely I'll ever submit to a psychiatrist's couch. I don't want some stranger prowling around through my psyche, monkeying with my id. I don't need an analyst to tell me that I have never had any sense of security. Who has?

I'm not at my best when I moralize or philosophize. Logic is elusive, especially to one who so rarely uses it.

Don't be taken in by the guff that critics are killing the theater. Commonly they sin on the side of enthusiasm. Too often they give their blessing to trash.

In my lifetime I've been to bed with men, women, and odd pieces of furniture.

I have three phobias ...: I hate going to bed, get up and hate hate being alone.

I have enemies I've never met - that's fame.

Bette [Davis] and I are good friends. There's nothing I wouldn't say to her face - both of them.

There have only been two authentic geniuses in the world, Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare and I think you'd better put Shakespeare first, darling.

I'm the foe of moderation, the champion of excess.

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.

Cocaine isn't habit forming. I should know, I've been using it for years

They say it's the good girls who keep diaries. The bad girls never have the time. Me, I just wanna live a life I'm gonna remember even if I don't write it down.

A frozen daiquiri of a scorching afternoon is soothing. It makes living more tolerable.

I've had a man and I've had a woman, and there's got to be something better.

I'm as pure as the driven slush.

My father warned me about men and booze but he never said anything about women and cocaine.

Don't think this has taught me a lesson !

Will TV kill the theater? If the programs I have seen, save for "Kukla, Fran and Ollie," the ball games and the fights, are any criterion, the theater need not wake up in a cold sweat.

Say anything about me, darling, as long as it isn't boring.

Too many of our countrymen rejoice in stupidity, look upon ignorance as a badge of honor. They condemn everything they don't understand.

They aren't making mirrors like they use to.

If I were well behaved, I'd die of boredom.

Do you know what my ambition is in life? To be without ambition. As far back as I can remember I've been absolutely hag-ridden. I'd like to attain the state of mind that the Indians call Nirvana. That, for me, would happen if I were free of ambition.

No man worth his salt, no man of spirit and spine, no man for whom I could have any respect, could rejoice in the identification of Tallulah's husband. It's tough enough to be bogged down in a legend. It would be even tougher to marry one.

Drink reacts on its practitioners in conflicting ways. One brave can knock off a quart of Scotch and look and act as sober as Herbert Hoover. Another, after three Martinis, makes two-cushion carroms off the chaise lounge as he attempts to negotiate the bathroom.

I've tried several varieties of sex. The conventional position makes me claustrophobic, and the others either give me a stiff neck or lockjaw.

Fill what is empty, empty what is full, and scratch where it itches.

For acting, darlings, is the world's most perilous trade. Compared with actors, steeple jacks and deep-sea divers lead snug and placid lives.

I thought I told you to wait in the car.

Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it.

... 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.

I think the Republican party should be placed in drydock and have the barnacles scraped off its bottom.