Katharine Hepburn Quotes (52 Quotes)


    Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.

    Love has nothing to do with what you are expecting to get - only with what you are expecting to give - which is everything.


    I can remember walking as a child. It was not customary to say you were fatigued. It was customary to complete the goal of the expedition.

    When I started out, I didn't have any desire to be an actress or to learn how to act. I just wanted to be famous.



    I don't believe in marriage. It's bloody impractical to love, honor, and obey.



    It would be a terrific innovation if you could get your mind to stretch a little further than the next wisecrack.

    You don't pick who you fall in love with. There are so few people to love. It's hard for one adult to even like another. Almost impossible.


    Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting. And you don't do that by sitting around.

    It's life isn't it? You plow ahead and make a hit. And you plow on and someone passes you. Then someone passes them. Time levels.


    Acting is the most minor of gifts. After all, Shirley Temple could do it when she was four.



    Living wasn't easy for you, was it You couldn't enter your own life, but you could be someone else. You weren't you then you were safe.


    The average Hollywood film star's ambition is to be admired by an American, courted by an Italian, married to an Englishman and have a French boyfriend.

    Life's what's important. Walking, houses, family. Birth and pain and joy. Acting's just waiting for a custard pie. That's all.

    I have many regrets, and I'm sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret... if you have any sense, and if you don't regret them, maybe you're stupid.

    If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.

    Life can be wildly tragic at times, and I've had my share. But whatever happens to you, you have to keep a slightly comic attitude. In the final analysis, you have got not to forget to laugh.

    What the hell you might be right, you might be wrong ... but don't just avoid.


    Show me an actress who isn't a personality and I'll show you a woman who isn't a star.

    The noise is so loud that birds, waves, and people are silenced by the frantic roar of morons screaming and tearing back and forth, back and forth, devastating the peace of a quiet day at the beach and the joy of fellow boatmen on the water.

    If you survive long enough, you're revered - rather like an old building.

    I never realized until lately that women were supposed to be the inferior sex.

    Everyone thought I was bold and fearless and even arrogant, but inside I was always quaking.

    To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.

    Dressing up is a bore. At a certain age, you decorate yourself to attract the opposite sex, and at a certain age, I did that. But I'm past that age.

    We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers - but never blame yourself. It's never your fault. But it's always your fault, because if you wanted to change you're the one who has got to change.

    Someone asked someone who was about my age How are you The answer was, Fine. If you don't ask for details.


    It's a rather rude gesture, but at least it's clear what you mean.


    Only the really plain people know about love - the very fascinating ones try so hard to create an impression that they soon exhaust their talents.

    It's a business you go into because your an egocentric. It's a very embarrassing profession.

    I think most of the people involved in any art always secretly wonder whether they are really there because they're good or there because they're lucky.


    My greatest strength is common sense. I'm really a standard brand - like Campbell's tomato soup or Baker's chocolate.

    . . . as one goes through life one learns that if you don't paddle your own canoe, you don't move.


    If you want to give up the admiration of thousands of men for the distain of one, go ahead, get married.

    Marriage is a series of desperate arguments people feel passionately about.

    Why slap them on the wrist with feather when you can belt them over the head with a sledgehammer.

    Being a housewife and a mother is the biggest job in the world, but if it doesn't interest you, don't do it - I would have made a terrible mother.


    More Katharine Hepburn Quotations (Based on Topics)


    Movies - Life - Acting - Time - Love - Joy & Excitement - Work & Career - People - Water - Marriage - Performance Arts - Birds - Woman - Sense & Perception - War & Peace - Sex - Sales - Boredom - Hell - View All Katharine Hepburn Quotations

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