Tallulah: My Autobiography
A source page for quotes linked to Tallulah Bankhead.
“I detest acting because it is sheer drudgery.”
“[On being asked in her later years if she were Tallulah:] I'm what's left of her, dahling.”
“I have been tight as a tick! Fried as a mink! Stiff as a goat!”
“In the theater lying is looked upon as an occupational disease.”
“A Republican. A Republican. That's worse than being a goddamned Communist!”
“A frozen daiquiri of a scorching afternoon is soothing. It makes living more tolerable.”
“I'm the foe of moderation, the champion of excess.”
“Bette [Davis] and I are good friends. There's nothing I wouldn't say to her face - both of them.”
“I have three phobias ...: I hate going to bed, get up and hate hate being alone.”
“In my lifetime I've been to bed with men, women, and odd pieces of furniture.”
“Of course cocaine is not adictive, darling. I should know, I've been doing it for years.”
“If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.”
“(On seeing a former lover for the first time in years) I thought I told you to wait in the car.”
“I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late, start without me.”
“I read Shakespeare and the Bible, and I can shoot dice. That's what I call a liberal education.”
“If you really want to help the American theater, don't be an actress, dahling. Be an audience.”
“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.”
“I'd rather be strongly wrong than weakly right.”
“Acting is a form of confession.”
“Here's a rule I recommend: Never practice two vices at once.”
“I've had a man and I've had a woman, and there's got to be something better.”