Women Born In The 1910s

"Scientific research shows that the human brain is formed at the age of three months of foetal life and that from that time on there is a continuous learning process at work — everything heard from them then on will be stored in the memory and will have its effect. [E. J.] Kallmann maintains that the primary homosexual is entirely precipitated by abnormal (in terms of moral as well as physical norms) sexual behaviour of parents during pregnancy or just after."

"The natural repugnance which most people feel when homosexuality and lesbianism is mentioned can result in a harshness of attitude and thinking which is, at least, unhelpful and certainly as unchristian as the perverse practices which are condemned. But to go to the other extreme and elevate people suffering from such abnormalities into a norm for society not only threatens society but is dangerous to the individuals themselves, since it excludes them from the consideration of treatment."

"I have always felt that one of the secrets of real beauty is simplicity."

"Men fell in love with Gilda, but they wake up with me."

"Dancing in Tijuana when I was 13 — that was my "summer camp." How else do you think I could keep up with Fred Astaire when I was 19?"

"Just because I was married to Aly Khan, people think I'm rich. Well, I'm not. I never got a dime from Aly or from any of my husbands."

"Everybody else does nude scenes, but I don't. I never made nude movies. I didn't have to do that. I danced. … I was provocative, I guess in some things. But I was not completely exposed."

"Nobody makes up my mind for me. They used to at Columbia."

"I'm an afternoon person."

"Movies were much better in the days when I was doing them."

"Perhaps if we thought for a second of the classic, simple elegance of the Spanish lady it might help us to be "simply" ourselves."

"I've had a lot of unhappiness in my life — and a lot of happiness. Who doesn't? Maybe I've learned enough to be able to guide my daughters."

"A great cricketer must be an artist and express himself in his strokes."

"The Australia of her book is not merely a setting for cricket but a place of interest, of fun and of new impressions"

"The work of an enthusiast who has watched and enjoyed cricket with an eye for detail and for character, for adventure and the human reflection beyond the ropes. It will, I fancy, be read with the same pleasure as it was written."

"Very few reporters in Fleet Street can write on the game with as much observation, sense of scene and character, and knowledge of the things that technically and tactically matter."

"I have been treated as a freak, rather like the fat lady at the circus."

"As we at all times criticise the Premier for his management of home affairs, call Mr Butler a fool for his Budget, find fault with Beecham's conducting, or Gielgud's performance, can we not, sometimes, say that our cricketers are not quite so brilliant as usual?"

"Now the Englishmen suddenly came to life. Four runs later Harvey received a beast of a ball from Tyson which spat up at him and splashed off his bat to Cowdrey, 104 for 4."

"'This is the stupidest place I have ever visited,' she said. 'I shall never come here again.' The tall man looked at her in silence and nodded. 'Yes, you will,' he said. 'You won't be able to stay away now that you have come.'"

"God is love, but get it in writing."

"If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing slowly … very slowly."

"I have everything I had twenty years ago, only it's all a little bit lower."

"Never once since I met you have I been bored; never once have I not wanted you. And never once, even for a moment, have I not loved you with all my heart."

"Love like that, any woman! If you get the chance, even if it may be a passing thing; even if the void seems all-encompassing when it comes, even if the heart bleeds almost to death, passionate love is worth it, it is worth it, it is worth all of it."

"The whole of time would not be long enough to tell you of my joy in being married to you. Joy is not measured just by lovely things: the birth of babies, the song of birds heard together, the fun of holidays — the lyrical-love of lying with you. Joy is to be found, too, in the relief after pain shared, in the good news following bad, in the knowledge of greater closeness after disaster."

"I didn't think then, and I still don't, that I was actually sick."

"The nicest thing I can say about Frances Farmer is that she is unbearable."

"Frances was a rebel when it wasn't fashionable — a free-thinking woman of the '30s and '40s whose outspoken nature, shocking language and anti-social behavior landed her in jails and mental institutions."

"I wondered a little why God was such a useless thing. It seemed a waste of time to have him. After that he became less and less, until he was… nothingness."

"I couldn't get that same feeling during the day, with my hands in dirty dish water and the hard sun showing up the dirtiness on the roof tops. And after a time, even at night, the feeling of God didn't last. I began to wonder what the minister meant when he said, "God, the father, sees even the smallest sparrow fall. He watches over all his children." That jumbled it all up for me. But I was sure of one thing. If God were a father, with children, that cleanliness I had been feeling wasn't God. So at night, when I went to bed, I would think, "I am clean. I am sleepy." And then I went to sleep. It didn't keep me from enjoying the cleaness any less. I just knew that God wasn't there. He was a man on a throne in Heaven, so he was easy to forget."

"Religion was too vague. God was different. He was something real, something I could feel. But there were only certain times when I could feel it. I used to lie between cool, clean sheets at night after I'd had a bath, after I had washed my hair and scrubbed my knuckles and finger-nails and teeth. Then I could lie quite still in the dark with my face to the window with the trees in it, and talk to God. "I am clean, now. I've never been as clean. I'll never be cleaner." And somehow, it was God. I wasn't sure that it was… just something cool and dark and clean."

"I went to Sunday School and liked the stories about Christ and the Christmas star. They were beautiful. They made you warm and happy to think about. But I didn't believe them. The Sunday School teacher talked too much in the way our grade school teacher used to when she told us about George Washington. Pleasant, pretty stories, but not true."

"I do not know Tyrone Power. I fucked him a lot, but I do not know him. Gentlemen, this meeting is over."

"[Hollywood]: It's a nuthouse. The other day a man phoned and wanted me to endorse a certain brand of cigarettes. I had nothing against them and in fact will smoke them or anything else that comes along, but I didn't know why he was bothering me. I thought maybe if I was nice they'd give me a carton as a thank offering, so I rather tentatively broached the matter of remuneration. What was the endorsement worth, I asked, and he said three thousand dollars. What are you going to do in an atmosphere like that?"

"What they had me doing first was autographing copies of Come and Get It at the Bon Marche, where I had been fired a couple of years back. That was bad enough but think of me autographing a book written by somebody else. That took crust but it didn't turn out so badly because when I got to the store, about twenty people finally strolled in and looked at me from a distance and kept their buying firmly in control. What the Goldwyn people had forgotten was that up that way I'm still remembered as the freak from West Seattle High."

"It was pretty sad, because for the first time I found how stupid people could be. It sort of made me feel alone in the world. The more people pointed at me in scorn the more stubborn I got and when they began calling me the Bad Girl of West Seattle High, I tried to live up to it."

"There comes a point when a dream becomes reality and reality becomes a dream."

"If a person is treated like a patient, they are apt to act like one."

"Life is not the way it’s supposed to be. It’s the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference."

"We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth."

"To all my friends, colleagues and family: I send you love. Please support me in my passage to a new life. I have no other way to thank you than this. You have all played a significant part in my development of loving. As a result, my life has been rich and full, so I leave feeling very grateful."

"I think if I have one message, one thing before I die that most of the world would know, it would be that the event does not determine how to respond to the event. That is a purely personal matter. The way in which we respond will direct and influence the event more than the event itself."

"Why Family Therapy?...because it deals with family pain."

"A growing body of clinical observation has pointed to the conclusion that the family therapy must be oriented to the family as a whole."

"I have often thought had there been somebody like me around, something might have been able to be done. I also think I don't see how I could have done what I've done in the world had I been married. And when I decided-because I've been on the verge of marriage many times-I said no, because if I wanted to roam the globe like I did, it wouldn't be fair. It wouldn't be fair to me, it wouldn't be fair to the people. At the point, I really feel it was a kind of destiny because I've been able to get to places. There are some people in the world who have other jobs to do."

"I believe the greatest gift I can conceive of having from anyone is to be seen, heard, understood and touched by them. The greatest gift I can give is to see, hear, understand and touch another person. When this is done, I feel contact has been made."