Tallulah Bankhead Quotes

39 Sourced Quotes

I don't know what I want.
Nobody knows — or if they do, they don't know for long. I mean, you don't want the same thing long enough for it to be What You Want From Life in capital letters.
Well, maybe some people do. Maybe there's a few simple folks — or maybe a few million, I don't know — who fix their hearts, and their minds, and their everlasting souls on a thing, and keep on all their lives hoping for it. Living for it. Wanting It From Life.
But these are the people who never get it.

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

Tallulah Bankhead
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.

Tallulah Bankhead
The cynic says "blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed." I say "blessed is he who expecteth everything, for he can't always be disappointed."

Tallulah Bankhead
Before we pursue this delicate subject further it might be wise to define intoxication. If you wake up in bed with your hat on you, it's my guess you may have been addled on retirement.

Tallulah Bankhead
I was raped in a driveway when I was eleven. … It was a terrible experience because we had all that gravel.

Tallulah Bankhead
I've tried several varieties of sex, all of which I hate. The conventional position makes me claustrophobic; the others give me a stiff neck and/or lockjaw.

Tallulah Bankhead
Of Shirley Temple:
They used to shoot her through gauze. You should shoot me through linoleum.

Tallulah Bankhead
Despite all you may have heard to the contrary, I have never had a ride in a patrol wagon.

Tallulah Bankhead
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?

Tallulah Bankhead
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.

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

Tallulah Bankhead
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.

Tallulah Bankhead
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.

Tallulah Bankhead