Barbara Stanwyck Quotations

Career is too pompous a word. It was a job, and I have always felt privileged to be paid for doing what I love doing.

Egotism - usually just a case of mistaken nonentity.

My only problem is finding a way to play my fortieth fallen female in a different way from my thirty-ninth.

I'm now the Lord of the Brighton Manor.

It's perhaps not the future I would choose. I still think it's possible to make a success of both marriage and career even though I didn't. But it's not a bad future. And I'm not afraid of it.

Attention embarrasses me. I don't like to be on display.

I couldn't remember my name for weeks. I'd be at the theater and hear them calling 'Miss Stanwyck, Miss Stanwyck,' and I'd think 'Where is that dame? Why doesn't she answer? By crickie, it's me!

[On a dull party:] It was a fête worse than death.

Sponsors obviously care more about a ninety-second commercial and want to pay you more than any guest star gets for a ninety-minute acting performance.

[On Marilyn Monroe:] Her body has gone to her head.

A star is only as good as her last picture.

Put me in the last fifteen minutes of a picture and I don't care what happened before. I don't even care if I was IN the rest of the damned thing - I'll take it in those fifteen minutes.

I'm a tough old broad from Brooklyn. Don't try to make me into something I'm not. If you want someone to tiptoe down the Barkley staircase in crinoline and politely ask where the cattle went, get another girl.

There is a point in portraying surface vulgarity where tragedy and comedy are very close.

The boy's got a lot to learn and I've got a lot to teach.

The more you kick something that's dead, the worse it smells.

I'm a tough old broad from Brooklyn. I intend to go on acting until I'm ninety, and they won't need to paste my face with make-up.

Eyes are the greatest tool in film. Mr. Capra taught me that. Sure it's nice to say very good dialogue, if you can get it. But great movie acting - watch the eyes!

Just be truthful - and if you can fake that, you've got it made.