If you really want to help the American theater, don’t be an actress, dahling. Be an audience. – Tallulah Bankhead
They used to photograph Shirley Temple through gauze. They should photograph me through linoleum. – Tallulah Bankhead
It’s one of the tragic ironies of the theatre that only one man in it can count on steady work – the night watchman. – Tallulah Bankhead
I did what I could to inflate the rumor I was on my way to stardom. What I was on my way to, by any mathematical standards known to man, was oblivion, by way of obscurity. – Tallulah Bankhead
I read Shakespeare and the Bible, and I can shoot dice. That’s what I call a liberal education. – Tallulah Bankhead
I have been absolutely hag-ridden with ambition. If I could wish to have anything in the world it would be to be free of ambition. – Tallulah Bankhead
The only thing I regret about my past is the length of it. If I had to live my life again I’d make all the same mistakes – only sooner. – Tallulah Bankhead
I have three phobias which, could I mute them, would make my life as slick as a sonnet, but as dull as ditch water: I hate to go to bed, I hate to get up, and I hate to be alone. – Tallulah Bankhead
Television could perform a great service in mass education, but there’s no indication its sponsors have anything like this on their minds. – Tallulah Bankhead
(On seeing a former lover for the first time in years) I thought I told you to wait in the car. – Tallulah Bankhead
The less I behave like Whistler’s mother the night before, the more I look like her the morning after. – Tallulah Bankhead
