The Best Lauren Bacall quotes

Life is not what you expected it to be. — Lauren Bacall

A planned life is a dead life. — Lauren Bacall

Here is a test to find out whether your mission in life is complete. If you’re alive, it isn’t. — Lauren Bacall

It’s inappropriate and vulgar and absolutely unacceptable to use your private life to sell anything commercially, but I think it’s kind of a sickness. — Lauren Bacall

You learn to rise above a lot of bad things that happen in your life. And you have to keep going. — Lauren Bacall

How long an actress lives professionally depends on her stamina, the extent of her masochism, her imagination, and her yearning for recognition or approval. — Lauren Bacall

Life is amazing, life is odd. Life is not what you expected it to be. Things happen… Growing up takes longer than you think. — Lauren Bacall

The purity of Jewish upbringing–the restrictions that one carries through life being a ‘nice Jewish girl’–what a burden. — Lauren Bacall

I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that. — Lauren Bacall

Acting is a life of rejection. — Lauren Bacall

Looking at yourself in a mirror isn’t exactly a study of life. — Lauren Bacall

When you are playing a part like that where you have traveled–you begin to think, God what a great life. Independent, living alone and how dramatic. — Lauren Bacall

Generally women are better than men––they have more character. I prefer men for some things, obviously, but women have a greater sense of honor and are more willing to take a chance with their lives. — Lauren Bacall

What is the point of working all your life and then stopping? — Lauren Bacall

I’m crazy enough to believe in taking chances in every way, in making choices and gambling with your life. That’s the kind of gambling I believe in. — Lauren Bacall

I like to work with really good professional people–anyone with real talent. — Lauren Bacall

I always wanted to work with Spencer Tracy, which never happened, although I knew him well. And I never worked with Cary Grant. — Lauren Bacall

People should tell your children what life is all about–it’s about work. — Lauren Bacall

I adored ‘Breaking The Waves,’ so when Lars von Trier wanted me in ‘Dogville,’ I was beside myself with joy. He works in a way that nobody I’ve ever worked with works. — Lauren Bacall

I’ve always felt that work–learning from people who know more than I know–is what keeps you going. — Lauren Bacall

Always I’m feeling, ‘You’re never going to work again.’ That’s going to happen one day, but I hope I’m not alive. — Lauren Bacall

I find that through the sad times, work is what made my continuing, not breaking down, possible. In work, I was always someone else and I subconsciously reveled in that. — Lauren Bacall

They think actors are freaks–that we’re a lot of drunks who party all the time and never work. Well, I for one work my tail off. — Lauren Bacall

The best things in life are clean living, good works, and big saphires. And not in that order. — Lauren Bacall

His attention span was not long, shall we say? — Lauren Bacall

You don’t always win Your battles, but it’s good to know You fought. — Lauren Bacall

Young people, even in Hollywood, ask me, ‘Were you really married to Humphrey Bogart?’ ‘Well, yes, I think I was,’ I reply. — Lauren Bacall

The reason you get married is to be together, not to be separated. — Lauren Bacall

The big rule is that you must never get mixed up with a married man–never even look sideways at another woman’s fella. Boy, I really was terrific at obeying that rule, wasn’t I? — Lauren Bacall

I would hate now to be married. It does occur to me on occasion that, if I fall and hit my head, there will be no one to make the phone call. But who wants to think about that disaster, I’d prefer not to. — Lauren Bacall

I’ll miss Hollywood. Of the twenty friends I thought I had, I’ll miss the six I really had. — Lauren Bacall

Howard Hawks said he’d like to put me in a film with Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart. I thought, ‘Cary Grant–terrific! Humphrey Bogart–yucch. — Lauren Bacall

I never believed marriage was a lasting institution . . . I thought that to be married for five years was to be married forever. — Lauren Bacall

I fairly often have thought how lucky I was. I knew everybody because I was married to Bogie, and that 25–year difference was the most fantastic thing for me to have in my life. — Lauren Bacall

I always thought I had crooked eyebrows and crooked teeth. That’s why I never understood why people called me a beauty. — Lauren Bacall

I remember my oldest son, Steve, saying to me once, ‘I don’t ever remember seeing you with an apron on.’ And I thought, that’s right, honey, you did not. That was his concept of what a mother should be. — Lauren Bacall

To fly as fast as thought, you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived. — Lauren Bacall

Being a liberal is the best thing on earth you can be. You are welcoming to everyone when you’re a liberal. You do not have a small mind. — Lauren Bacall

I don’t sit around thinking that I’d like to have another husband; only another man would make me think that way. — Lauren Bacall

I love being Jewish; I have no problem with it at all. But it did become like a scar, with all these people saying you don’t look it. — Lauren Bacall

A man’s illness is his private territory and, no matter how much he loves you and how close you are, you stay an outsider. You are healthy. — Lauren Bacall

The real stakes in The Theater are high–They are life stakes. That’s what I love about it. You gamble with your life, and that’s a gamble worth taking. — Lauren Bacall

How in hell can you handle love without turning your life upside down? That’s what love does, it changes everything. — Lauren Bacall

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. — Lauren Bacall