Maude Adams Quotes (13 Quotes)

Genius is the talent for seeing things straight.

Life is so fresh, life is every day so new if we are fighting, only for the best. Sometimes I think the only real satisfaction in life is failure, failure in your endeavor to do your best.

I had very little confidence in myself as an actress.

Don't let anyone persuade you that anything we do in life less than our own best, is a worthy thing. You must never compromise with your life. We know when we are doing first-rate things. When we satisfy ourselves with second-rate things, it is the beginning of a long, long death. We die from that minute.

Don't be afraid of failure; be afraid of petty success.

You may shelve your Shakespearian plans for the present. I am going to play Peter Pan.

I've changed my mind about the interview. I shall never give interviews.

I had not finished the first act before the quaint character of Peter Pan had charmed me. I could feel the presence of the Fairies and the Indians and the Pirates and the lost boys of Never-Never-Never Land.

When I was about 15... I made my first attempt as a leading lady, and was, of course, a complete failure.

Sometimes it seems that we are successful only because we have not tried hard enough for our best. We do the hard thing, and one day we succeed, and many things are made plain to us.

If I have smashed the traditions, it was because I knew no traditions.

I love Salt Lake City, but I love you and the life of work before me still better.

The delightful sense of importance that had been mine as a child actress was taken out of me. It seemed as if anyone could do better than I did. In every part I was worse than in the one before, and even my mother admitted that it would be a mercy if gestures could be dispensed with entirely.