Discipline is a symbol of caring to a child. He needs guidance. If there is love, there is no such thing as being too tough with a child. A parent must also not be afraid to hang himself. If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent.

I survived because I was tougher than anybody else.

Strong women only marry weak men.

Temperament is something that is an integral part of the artist. Not temper, temperament. There is a vast difference.

Never, never trust anyone who asks for white wine. It means they’re phonies.

Home is where you go to when you’ve nowhere to go.

Without discipline and detachment, an actor is an emotional slob, spilling his insides out. This abandonment is having an unfortunate vogue. It is tasteless, formless, absurd. Without containment, there is no art. All this vomiting and wheezing and bursting at the seams is no more great acting than the convulsions of raving maniacs.

People stood on their chairs, cheering and waving. And it was all for me! Waves of love flooded the stage and washed over me. I started to cry. The sweetness of such a moment is impossible to describe. One is both lover and beloved. … I’d found the one true, enduring romance of my life.

Basically, I believe the world is a jungle, and if it’s not a bit of a jungle in the home, a child cannot possibly be fit to enter the outside world.

People often become actresses because of something they dislike about themselves: They pretend they are someone else.

She’s the original good time who was had by all.

Old age is no place for sissies.

I do not regret one professional enemy I have made. Any actor who doesn’t dare to make an enemy should get out of the business.

I often think that a slightly exposed shoulder emerging from a long satin nightgown packs more sex than two naked bodies in bed.

Oh, don’t let’s ask for the moon. We’ve already got the stars.

Good actors I’ve worked with all started out making faces in a mirror, and you keep making faces all your life.

The secret of marriage is separate bedrooms and separate bathrooms.

You can lose everything but you can’t lose your talent!

There’s only one way to work — like hell.

There was more good acting at Hollywood parties than ever appeared on the screen.

Success only breeds a new goal

The best time I ever had with Joan Crawford was when I pushed her down the stairs in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

You’ve got to know someone pretty well to hate them.

On gay men: Let me say, a more artistic, appreciative group of people for the arts does not exist … They are more knowledgeable, more loving of the arts. They make the average male look stupid.

It has been my experience that one cannot, in any shape or form, depend on human relations for lasting reward. It is only work that truly satisfies.

I was thought to be ‘stuck up.’ I wasn’t. I was just sure of myself. This is and always has been an unforgivable quality to the unsure.

I have been uncompromising, peppery, intractable, monomaniacal, tactless, volatile, and oftentimes disagreeable… I suppose I’m larger than life.

It’s a rare man who can stand being around an intelligent woman, let alone married to her.

One can make more enemies as a female with a brain, I think.

To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given a chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy.

Don’t you hate people who drink white wine? I mean, my dear, every alcoholic in town is getting falling-down drunk on white wine. They think they aren’t drunks because they only drink wine. Never, never trust anyone who asks for white wine. It means they’re phonies.

You should know me well enough by now to know I don’t ask for things I don’t think I can get.

I wouldn’t piss on Joan Crawford if she were on fire.

I am a woman meant for a man, but I never found a man who could compete.

You know what I’m going to have on my gravestone? ‘She did it the hard way.’

I’m the nicest goddamn dame that ever lived.

I have eyes like a bullfrog, a neck like an ostrich, and long, limp hair. You just have to be good to survive with that equipment.

Once the love bug wears off, as it inevitably does, you are shocked to discover that you really didn’t know the object of your affections at all. We know this to be so, even as we repeat the same mistake over and over and over.

Being called very, very difficult is the beginning of success. Until you’re called very, very difficult you’re really nobody at all.

One begins to realize that one is getting old when the birthday candles weigh more than the cake.

Success is built on disappointment, and disappointment is inherent in all success.

Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.

A sure way to lose happiness, I found, is to want it at the expense of everything else.

You know what nostalgia is, don’t you? It’s basically a matter of recalling the fun without reliving the pain.

If everybody likes you, you are not a very interesting person.

If you’ve never been hated by your child, you’ve never been a parent.

Fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy night! – As Margo Channing in All About Eve

Your luck is how you treat people.

The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he’s dead.

I want to die with my high heels on, still in action.

It’s true we don’t know what we’ve got until it’s gone, but we don’t know what we’ve been missing until it arrives. Pleasure of love lasts but a moment, Pain of love lasts a lifetime.

I’d marry again if I found a man who had fifteen million dollars, would sign over half to me, and guarantee that he’d be dead within a year

My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose.

There may be a heaven, but if Joan Crawford is there, I’m not going.

Life is the past, the present, and the perhaps.

If you want a thing done well, get a couple of old broads to do it.

Some young Hollywood starlets remind me of my grandmother’s old farmhouse — all painted up nice on the front side, a big swing on the backside, and nothing whatsoever in the attic.

You will never be happier than you expect. To change your happiness, change your expectation.

Getting old is not for sissies

There comes a time in every woman’s life when the only thing that helps is a glass of champagne.

If everyone likes you, you’re not doing it right.

You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good . . . Joan Crawford is dead. Good.

It’s better to be hated for who you are than to be loved for someone you’re not. It’s a sign of your worth sometimes if you’re hated by the right people.