Lauren Bacall Quotes

I've had somebody on the end of the phone, maybe, but I haven't been living with anyone or been in a proper relationship, and it's been really great. And now I'm completely on my own. I think I've grown up a lot.

I saw myself traveling with a company or making my own work and being a little weird. I wasn't thinking about the business side of anything, I just knew that I loved dancing.

There's something going on right now in America, where the American spirit or character is reasserting itself around liberty. I think it's an important time, and I'm trying to document that as an artist. If I just filter what I read through the media, if I just go through what I read through the media, I'm not really in touch with the world I grew up in. I know there's a gap there, I talk to my relatives, I talk to people I meet traveling around, and their mind is on something completely different.

Poor slob without a name. It's a little inconvenient, his not having a name. But I haven't the right to give him one: he'll have to wait until he belongs to somebody. We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I. I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me and things belong together.

To live in relationship and yet remain independent, that is what courage is.

I think the thing that I got most from working with Frank Zappa is that I was able to see someone who completely independent. The most beautiful thing about Frank was that he was completely in the moment and present and eternally creative.

I go in solitude, so as not to drink out of everybody's cistern. When I am among the many I live as the many do, and I do not think I really think; after a time it always seems as if they want to banish myself from myself and rob me of my soul.

Thinking that people are supposed to do or be anything other than what they are is like saying that the tree over there should be the sky. I investigated that and found freedom.

Catholic school gave me the tools to reject the very religion they wanted me to have. They taught me how to think for myself and to be independent.

The experience that I had in Paris I could never have ever again in my life. This is when I grew up as a young man. I was independent. There was no one there to talk to; I didn't even want to talk to anyone. I started to write about what I was experiencing, and I had no choice, so I was never scared.

Sometimes it takes courage and experience to allow yourself to actually go into being someone that you're not, and it's the most liberating thing to let go. I do think that's why I love acting - it's being someone that you're not. And sometimes you're really scared of it, and then once you let yourself go there, it's the best thing ever.

I don't want to be anything other than what I've been trying to be lately. All I have to do is think of me and I have peace of mind. I'm tired of looking 'round rooms wondering what I've got to do or who I'm supposed to be. I don't want to be anything other than me.

A man forced to spend his life without ever having the right, without ever finding the time, to shut himself up all alone, no matter where, to think, to reflect, to work, to dream? Ah! my dear boy, a key, the key of a door which one can lock this is happiness, mark you, the only happiness!

I used to think freedom meant doing whatever you want. It means knowing who you are, what you are supposed to be doing on this earth, and then simply doing it.

The white fathers told us: I think, therefore I am. The black goddess within each of us - the poet - whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free.

I was suddenly very aware of the fact it was me standing up in that tunnel with the wind over my face. Not caring if I saw downtown. Not even thinking about it. Because I was standing in the tunnel. And I was really there. And that was enough to make me feel infinite.

Don't think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn't stop you from doing anything at all.

Make it on your own if you think you can.If you see somewhere to go, I understand.

I think the beautiful thing about acting is you don't really know who you are. You're able to be whatever you want any day during the week.

The world's greatest thinkers have often been amateurs; for high thinking is the outcome of fine and independent living, and for that a professional chair offers no special opportunities.

Never did I think so much, exist so much, be myself so much as in the journeys I have made alone and on foot. Walking has something about it which animates and enlivens my ideas. I can hardly think while I am still; my body must be in motion to move my mind.

And without Dex in my life, I like to think I could have somehow found contentment. But the truth is, I feel freer with Dex than I ever did when I was single. I feel more myself with him than without. Maybe true love does that

Literal thousands of Americans taking to the road and getting into that green automobile and just going. At the same time there is real incredible work [of art] that comes out of it. Never forget that.

It isn’t necessary to know exactly how your ideal life will look; you only have to know what feels better and what feels worse…Begin making choices based on what makes you feel freer and happier, rather than on how you think an ideal life should look. It’s the process of feeling our way toward happiness, not the realization of the Platonic ideal, that creates our best lives.

I think living in a new country gives you a certain bravery that you don't have when you live in your own country - because of the freedom it gives you.