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Quote by Shirley MacLaine

“I am stubborn," he had said once, 'or how you call "obstinate," then you must hit me. Hit me hard. Russians need to be hit. We only understand to be hit. We need a big fist, I can tell you.”

Quote by Shirley MacLaine

Work

Dancing in the Light

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Author

Shirley MacLaine
Shirley MacLaine

Shirley MacLaine is an American film actress celebrated for her versatile performances across various genres. Born on April 24, 1934, she has had a distinguished career in Hollywood, earning numerous accolades and nominations. MacLaine achieved international acclaim for her role in 'The Apartment' (1960) and has since starred in numerous other prominent films. more

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“I read many books on Russian artists, writers, philosophers, and musicians in an attempt to understand [Vassy, her partner]. I seemed to be concluding that the Russian himself was saying 'We are not to be understood.' It was maddeningly challenging to me. I didn't like not understanding...at least to my satisfaction. Half savage, half saint. That seemed to be the consensus of opinion among the Russians themselves. The communist government appeared to be irrelevant, merely a continuation in a different form of a system which basically denied the importance of the individual. Vassy had told me in the beginning that the Russian people had the government they needed and understood, and in many respects he even claimed they would want Joe Stalin back because he would, in effect, protect them from themselves.”

“That night at dinner, I thanked Rayya for taking care of everybody at the funeral, and for protecting us from the dangerous young man. She looked surprised, then her face softened. “Oh, honey,” she said, and suddenly tears stood in her eyes. “Did you think I was protecting us? No, baby, no. I was protecting him. Because here’s the reality, babe: We’re fine, and we’ll always be fine—even if he stole our car! Nobody needs to worry about us. But the odds are that kid doesn’t have much longer to live. He’s really far gone, and he doesn’t have any support system. But there’s always a chance he might get clean some day, with a miracle. And if he ever cleans up his life, as part of his recovery he’ll have to make amends to every single person he’s ever harmed. And I don’t want that poor kid, in addition to everything else he’ll have to face someday, to be forced to deal with the fact that he stole money from people at his grandmother’s funeral. I wouldn’t want that for anybody. So that’s what we were doing today, honey. We were keeping him safe from that—from the worst thing he could do to himself.”

“Ex-Foreign Legionnaires in London, for instance, often use the same pubs, but more than that they all know where to contact each other if ever they’re threatened. If they’re ever in trouble - and by nature of the life they’ve led that’s highly probable - members of their tribe will immediately come from all over London to lend robust assistance. There are similar tribes in the underbelly of every city. I just happen to know about ex-Legionnaires because I’ve come across a couple, drank with them and listened to their stories. It’s like sitting with pirates, fortune-hunters, bank robbers and Gypsies”

“The best example I know, of this astonishingly stupid attitude towards sport, is that of Franz Ferdinand. His, however, was an achievement with the gun. He used to shoot at Konopist with no less than seven weapons and four loaders, and he once killed more than 4,000 birds, himself, in one day. [A propos of statistics and quite beside the point: a Yorkshireman once drank 52½ pints of beer in one hour.] Now why did Franz Ferdinand do this? Even if he shot for twelve hours at a stretch, without pause for luncheon, it means that he killed six birds in each minute of the day. The mere manual labour, a pheasant every ten seconds for twelve successive hours, is enough to make a road-mender stagger; and there is little wonder that, by the time the unhappy archduke had accumulated his collection of 300,000 head of game, he was shooting with rubber pads on his coat and a bandage round his ears. The unfortunate man had practically stunned himself with gunpowder, long before they bagged him also at Sarajevo.”