Irene Dunne Quotes

"I always believed in my characters. I lived them."

"But that`s why there are so few women stars today. Pornography has taken away the mystery."

"You can be much more alone with other people than you are by yourself. Even if it`s people you love."

"There is no fence nor hedge round time that is gone. You can go back and have what you like of it if you can remember."

"I took my work seriously. Everything I did had a purpose. It wasn`t just a superficial acting job for the moment. It was tremendously important to me ... but ... I knew all along that acting was not everything there was."

"Nothing can replace the excitement, the magic, and yes the glamor of a Ziegfeld show."

"You see I found I didn`t have to act to be happy."

"I didn`t lead a very wise life, myself, but it was a full one and a grown-up one. You come of age very quickly through shipwreck and disaster."

"There was one year I did five pictures and I think of all the rewarding other things I could have been accomplishing."

"I`ve had one husband, one daughter, one house, and no lovers."

"The picture postcard people printed a card of our house and the address years ago for the tourists but they made a mistake and took the next house."

"It`s easy to understand why the most beautiful poems about England in the spring were written by poets living in Italy at the time."

"God does not read an actress`s press clippings."

"I have much to be thankful for and I am. My hunches have been good to me."

"I know all the swear words. I just don`t use them. There are worse things in life than being called a Lady."

"Now, Claudette Colbert lived next door and she`s finish a movie on Saturday-- we worked Saturdays in those days-- and begin wondering what she was doing on Monday. I lacked that terrifying ambition. I drifted into acting and drifted out. Acting is not everything. Living is."

"I`ve always been a religious person. I think faith is terribly important--not that I want to be a professional Catholic or try to sell my religion to anyone else. But I was thinking the other day about Saint Peter, who went out fishing who, though he had fished all night and caught nothing, still let down his net again. That`s what all of us have to do, I think. We say we`re tired, but we have to go out, and try and try and try-- again and again! And that`s not religious faith. That`s just faith in-- possibilities! I`m proud of what I`ve done. But I`ve just scratched the surface. I want to be the kind of woman that can grow and go on growing."

"But that`s why there are so few women stars today. Pornography has taken away the mystery."

I don`t know why the public took a liking to me so fast. Popularity is a curious thing. The public responds to a dimple, a smile, a giggle, a hairstyle, an attitude. Acting talent has less to do with it than personality.

I love beautiful things, but a woman who considers herself best dressed usually spends all of her time at it.

(Comedy) demands more timing, pace, shading and subtlety of emphasis. It is difficult to learn but once it is acquired it can be easily slowed down and becomes an excellent foundation for dramatic acting.

When we have learned to love our neighbour, not just ourselves, no matter where we come from, then America will be perfect.

Trying to build the brotherhood of man without the Fatherhood of God is like having the spokes of a wheel without the hub.

I appeared with many leading men. But working with Cary Grant was different from working with other actors - he was much more fun! I think we were a successful team because we enjoyed working together tremendously, and that pleasure must have shown through onto the screen ... I will always remember two compliments he made me. He said I had perfect timing in comedy and that I was the sweetest-smelling actress he ever worked with.

(on being asked if she would ever write her memoirs, 1983) "The Lord never wrote a book, not that I knew about. Not really. And I don`t think Abraham Lincoln ever wrote a book. So I have put it off again."

No triumph of either my stage or screen career has ever rivalled the excitement of trips down the Mississippi on the river boats with my father.

Whenever I have to weep for the cameras, I prefer to cry real tears..., provided I have enough time to recover my emotions before I make the `take`. But if I have to do another and greatly different scene afterward...it frequently is easier on my emotions just to put glycerine or some other tear substitute in my eyes.