ELAINE DUNDY

To me Vivien Leigh was a tragic heroine of classic proportions: chosen, blessed and abandoned by the gods. Obstinately she tried to control and defy her destiny and to know her story is to be inspired by pity and terror.

It's difficult to explain, but I just somehow feel that I never really *have* lived; that I never really will live--exist or whatever--in the sense that other people do. It drives me crazy. I was terribly aware of it all those nights waiting for you in the Ritz bar looking around at what seemed to be real grown-up lives. I just find everybody else's life surrounded by plate glass. I mean I'd like to break through it just once and actually touch one.

To love one that is great, is almost to be great one's self.

At some point in my life I realized I knew only celebrities, I didn't know any real people. I think it was a master stroke of Fate that in researching the greatest celebrity of them all, I would at last be meeting real people, finding them more extraordinary than celebrities; fascinated by them all and enjoying enduring friendships with some.

... I was merely a disinterested spectator at the Banquet of Life.

Oh, Teddy, darling, thank you, thank you, for restoring my cynicism. I was too young to lose it.

I hate champagne more than anything in the world next to Seven-Up.

A rowdy bunch on the whole, they were most of them so violently individualistic as to be practically interchangeable.

I always expect people to behave much better than I do. When they actually behave worse, I am frankly incredulous.

What is always overlooked is that although the poor want to be rich, it does not follow that they either like the rich or that they in any way want to emulate their characters which, in fact, they despise. Both the poor and the rich have always found precisely the same grounds on which to complain about each other. Each feels the other has no manners, is disloyal, corrupt, insensitive - and has never put in an honest day's work in its life.

I hate champagne more than anything in the world next to Seven-Up.

Acting doesn't bring anything to a text. On the contrary, it detracts from it.

To love one that is great, is almost to be great one's self.

It's amazing how right you can be about a person you don't know; it's only the people you do know who confuse you.

... I was merely a disinterested spectator at the Banquet of Life.

A rowdy bunch on the whole, they were most of them so violently individualistic as to be practically interchangeable.

I always expect people to behave much better than I do. When they actually behave worse, I am frankly incredulous.

The vehemence of my moral indignation surprised me. Was I beginning to have standards and principles, and, oh dear, scruples? What were they, and what would I do with them, and how much were they going to get in my way?

That's my answer to the question what is your strongest emotion, if you ever want to ask me: Curiosity, old bean. Curiosity every time.

It's difficult to explain, but I just somehow feel that I never really *have* lived; that I never really will live--exist or whatever--in the sense that other people do. It drives me crazy. I was terribly aware of it all those nights waiting for you in the Ritz bar looking around at what seemed to be real grown-up lives. I just find everybody else's life surrounded by plate glass. I mean I'd like to break through it just once and actually touch one.

At some point in my life I realized I knew only celebrities, I didn't know any real people. I think it was a master stroke of Fate that in researching the greatest celebrity of them all, I would at last be meeting real people, finding them more extraordinary than celebrities; fascinated by them all and enjoying enduring friendships with some.

I don't always understand other people's motives. I will repeat that for my own benefit, if you don't mind. I don't always understand other people's motives.

The world is wide, wide, wide, and I am young, young, young, and we’re all going to live forever!

Oh, Teddy, darling, thank you, thank you, for restoring my cynicism. I was too young to lose it.

What is always overlooked is that although the poor want to be rich, it does not follow that they either like the rich or that they in any way want to emulate their characters which, in fact, they despise. Both the poor and the rich have always found precisely the same grounds on which to complain about each other. Each feels the other has no manners, is disloyal, corrupt, insensitive - and has never put in an honest day's work in its life.

I mean, the question actors most often get asked is how they can bear saying the same things over and over again, night after night, but God knows the answer to that is, don't we all anyway; might as well get paid for it.

I find I always have to write something on a steamed mirror.

To me Vivien Leigh was a tragic heroine of classic proportions: chosen, blessed and abandoned by the gods. Obstinately she tried to control and defy her destiny and to know her story is to be inspired by pity and terror.

I’ve never wanted to meet anyone I’ve been introduced to. I want to meet all the other people.

What’s the use of remembering anything? If it was unpleasant it was unpleasant and if it was pleasant it’s over.