Women Born In The 19th Century

"No education is ever wasted and everything you learn is helpful in acting."

"Languages, literature, art, music, history: are all self-evident helps - and even mathematics and sciences, by training memory and demanding the analytical approach, are helpful by indirection."

"This is an amazing business, creative and mechanical at the same time."

"If I arrived in Hollywood today, I would keep reminding myself not to try to make a big impression."

"If I began today, I would certainly remember that by becoming a movie actress one automatically becomes vulnerable in the matter of gossip."

"There are worse things in life than being called a lady."

"I always demanded respect. I came prepared and expected others to do the same."

"I did all my fighting before the film started. I fought for the best director, the best lighting man. I was always conscious of how I looked."

"I had great cameramen like Rudolph Mate and Hal Mohr. They'd take an hour to light the proper closeup of me."

"Extremism of the right or the left is dangerous."

"That's why there are so few women stars today. Pornography has taken away the mystery."

"Now don't you dare call me normal. I was never a Pollyanna. There was always a lot of Theodora in me."

"Happiness is never an accident", he told me. "It is the prize we get when we choose wisely from life's great stores. Don't reach out wildly for this and that and the other thing. You'll end up empty handed if you do. Make up your mind what you want. Go after it. And be prepared to pay well for it. I hope that you'll go after the rooted things - the self-respect that comes when we accept our share of responsibility. Satisfying work. Marriage. A home. A family. For these are the things that grow better with time, not less. These things are the bulwarks of happiness."

"She was, and is, a real lady. And a great star. They don't make them like her any more -and her beauty today is still unfaded.""

"Charming but doesn't make great copy."

"I can guarantee no juicy bits of intimate gossip. Unless, perhaps she lies awake nights heartsick about the kitchen sink in her new home. She's afraid it's too near to the door. Or would you call that juicy? No? No, I thought not."

"The Irene I know is as vague as the absent-minded professor - and as adroit. She´s casual as a Noel Coward heroine and as conscientious as a Salvation Army missionary. She´s as fragile as Dresden and as strong as steel."

"Irene Dunne always portrayed the lady in her films and she's rather dismayed by some of the present day celluloid trends."

"When you think you've got a scene going, and it's all yours, Irene can just move a finger or an eye or give a nod of her head and steal it."

"On The Awful Truth we just clicked. She'd been a weepie star and comedy was strange to her. She'd do a bit and whisper to me, "Funny?" She was the sweetest smelling of my leading ladies and such a lady. If one of the crew cussed, she'd blush. She claims she was out shopping at Bullocks for a present for her husband and the saleslady said, "I don't think Mr. Grant would like that." In the minds of the public, we were married. Reunions became impossible because we both liked first billing. It's ladies first in rowboats but not in movies, I'm afraid. But I still see her at the races and she still smells wonderful."

"When she saw the children jumping first upon one bare foot and then upon the other, she envied them and wished that she, too, could run barefooted for a little while. For a little while. She was a royal child. She knew that golden shoes pinch and there is no escaping them."

"I think hawking is the nearest thing to flying in this world. There you sit high up and poised light as air, the horse swift beneath you. You unhood your bird, let the jesses go and watch your falcon, its bells a-jingle, like some wild spirit take the air … and your own spirit goes with it."

"I was a lonely child though there were children in plenty on our land. But my nurse forbade me to play with them. She guarded my dignity; more than my mother, indeed, who being so great a lady took dignity for granted. But in any case there was little time for them to play. There was work for even the smallest upon our land; some of our peasants had run away, tempted by ever-rising wages. Wages fixed by law were certainly low; but, like many another ruined in the French wars, we had no money to pay a penny more than the law laid down. All over the country men were running away from their masters and the land lost as many laborers as by the Black Death itself."

"There is no magic when one no longer believes."

"Nobody seemed to know where the King was. He was at Windsor choosing new furnishings for the little Queen's rooms; he was hunting at Eltham; he was at Leeds Castle; he was at Havering. He was here, he was there, restless as quicksilver. Certainly I never set eyes on him. I was disappointed. And yet I was relieved, too. It was common talk that the King's moods shifted this way and that you never knew what to expect."

"Earth and fire and water and air We solemnly promise, we solemnly swear Not a word, not a hint, not a sound to declare Earth and fire and water and air!"

"Magic doesn't happen often — not once in a blue moon … I expect there isn't another magic ship like this one in the whole world."

"Magic. Magic had happened to him. He knew it would one day. He had always believed in magic, even whe the others had laughed at him, laughed because he was the eldest and ought to know better."

"Why think of anything at all but the pretty, gentle child sitting high upon the white horse! So women holding up their children to see her pass cried blessings on her head, the easy blessings of a crowd, that may turn at any moment to curses. And there were wenches in plenty, who, seeing the little Queen in cloth of gold and the King at her side, handsome Richard, wished themselves, no doubt, in her place."

"Baldwin ruled out the traditional compromise of a morganatic marriage, the sort that Archduke Francis Ferdinand had made when he married Sophie Countess Chotek von Chotkova, whose family was not of royal blood. As Duff Cooper noted, however, the timing of events was not to the King's advantage. He waited until after his accession to the throne to raise the question of marrying Wallis Simpson. Nor did it help matters that he was stridently supported by both the Rothermere and Beaverbrook papers, to say nothing of Winston Churchill, at that time in the political wilderness."

"I am sure there is only one solution, that is for me to remove myself from the King's life. That is what I am doing now."

"[A]n entirely unscrupulous woman who is not in love with the King but is exploiting him for her own purposes. She has already ruined him in money and jewels..."

"I never wanted to get married. This was all his idea. [...] I remember like yesterday the morning after we were married and I woke up and there was David [i.e., Edward VIII] standing beside the bed with this innocent smile, saying, "And now what do we do?" My heart sank. Here was someone whose every day had been arranged for him all his life and now I was the one who was going to take the place of the entire British government, trying to think up things for him to do."

"You can never be too rich or too thin."

"Like dew on drooping blossoms, Like breath from Holy place, Laden with health and healing, Come Thy deep words of grace: "Thy strength is all in leaning On One who fights for thee; Thine is the helpless clinging, And mine the victory.""

"Thou wilt draw nigh! Father — it is no dream that Thou art near — No dream that, in my sin and misery, I may look up to Thee,— May hide beneath the shadow of Thy wings, From all the restlessness of outward things, And from my own heart's self-accusing fears — For Thou art nigh."

"My Master and my Lord! I long to do some work, some work for Thee; I long to bring some lowly gift of love For all Thy love to me."

"Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, Merry merry king of the bush is he. Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh, Kookaburra, Gay your life must be!"

"Her watercolors, her pastels, her paintings all show.. ..a light touch and unpretentious allure that we can only admire. Mademoiselle Morisot has an extraordinary sensitive eye..[and].. succeeds in capturing fleeting notes on her canvases, with a delicacy, spirit, and skill that ensure her a prominent place at the center of the impressionists' group."

"She uses pastel with the freedom and charm that Rosalba Carriera first brought to the medium in the eighteenth century.. .Here is a delicate colorist who succeeds in making everything cohere into an overall harmony of shades of white which it is difficult to orchestrate without lapsing into sentimentality."

"There is only one impressionist among the group of revolutionaries Impressionists, and that is Berthe Morisot.. .Her painting has all the freedom of improvisation, truly the 'impression' experienced by a sincere, honest eye, rendered by a hand that does not cheat."

"There is also, as in all famous gangs, a woman. Her name is Berthe Morisot, and she is a curiosity. She manages to convey a certain degree of feminine grace in spite of her outbursts of delirium."

"Drawn more to rendering the appearance of things with marked economy of means, infusing them with the fresh charm of feminine vision, Mlle Berthe Morisot succeeds marvelously in capturing the intimate presence of a modern woman or child, in the quintessential atmosphere of a beach or grassy lawn.. .We feel as if the charming woman and child are completely unaware that their pose.. ..is being perpetuated in this charming watercolor."

"If possible, come and take care of the placing [for the first Impressionist painting show of Spring 1876, in the art-gallery of Durand-Ruel in Paris, with nineteen pictures of Berthe Morisot]. We are planning to hang the works of each painter in the group together, separating them from any others as much as possible.. .. please, do come and direct this."

"We also consider that Miss Berthe Morisot's name and talent are too important to us to do without."

"I am often with you, my dear Berthe, in my thoughts. I follow you everywhere in your studio and I wish that I could escape, were it only for one quarter of an hour to breathe again that air in which we lived for many years."

"I quite agree with you, the Mademoiselles Morisot are charming. What a pity they are not men. All the same, they could serve the cause of painting, in their capacity of women, by each marrying an academician and bringing trouble to those old bogeys in the enemy-camp. Or perhaps that's asking too much sacrifice."

"I would also point out two landscapes by Mesdemoiselles Morisot, - doubtless two sisters [Berthe and Edma]. Corot is sure to be their master. These canvases show a freshness and naivety of expression and atmosphere that provided some respite from the suave, mean-minded work lapped up with such enthusiasm by the crowds. The artists must have painted these studies quite deliberately on the spot [in open-air] determined to reproduce what they saw."

"There are works for exhibition, others for the studio, you need to follow the public's taste if you want to succeed.. ..with some works you make your reputation with the artists, with others you do good business if possible"

"Since it is not necessary to have had a long training in draughtsmanship at the Academy to paint a copper pot, a candlestick and a bunch of radishes, women succeed quite well in this domestic type of painting. Miss Berthe Morisot brings to the task really a great deal of frankness with a delicate feeling for light and colour."