Helen Hayes

Everybody starts at the top, and then has the problem of staying there. Lasting accomplishment, however, is still achieved through a long, slow climb and self-discipline.

Actors cannot choose the manner in which they are born. Consequently, it is the one gesture in their lives completely devoid of self-consciousness.

There's a little vanity chair that Charlie gave me the first Christmas we knew each other. I'll not be parting with that, nor our bed - the four-poster - I'll be needing that to die in.

I'm leaving the screen because I don't think I am very good in the pictures and I have this beautiful dream that I'm elegant on the stage.

The worst constructed play is a Bach fugue when compared to life.

Actors work and slave and it is the color of your hair that can determine your fate in the end.

Mere longevity is a good thing for those who watch Life from the side lines. For those who play the game, an hour may be a year, a single day's work an achievement for eternity.

Stardom can be a gilded slavery.

Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn't original sin. He's born with the tragedy that he has to grow up... a lot of people don't have the courage to do it.

The story of a love is not important-what is important is that one is capable of love. It is perhaps the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity.

People who refuse to rest honorably on their laurels when they reach retirement age seem very admirable to me.

From your parents you learn love and laughter and how to put one foot before the other. But when books are opened you discover that you have wings.

Only the poet can look beyond the detail and see the whole picture.

If you rest, you rust.

We relish news of our heroes, forgetting that we are extraordinary to somebody too.

Age is not important unless you're a cheese.

The truth is that there is only one terminal dignity - love. And the story of a love is not important - what is important is that one is capable of love. It is perhaps the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity.

Legends die hard. They survive as truth rarely does.

When traveling with someone, take large does of patience and tolerance with your morning coffee.

Childhood is a short season.

I'm a boss by nature. I'm bossy. I'm not imperious, but I don't really want people to curtsy low before me and back out of rooms, but I do like to run things.

The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy.

The good die young but not always. The wicked prevail but not consistently. I am confused by life, and I feel safe within the confines of the theatre.

One has to grow up with good talk in order to form the habit of it.

I cry out for order and find it only in art.