Anne Bancroft Quotes

Anne Bancroft delivers witty, self-aware reflections on acting, humor and life that feel like a candid chat.

31 quotes

1. I was at a point where I was ready to say I am what I am because of what I am and if you like me I'm grateful, and if you don't, what am I going to do about it?

2. There are always good parts. They may not pay what you want, and they may not have as many days' work as you want, they may not have the billing that you want, they may not have a lot of things, but-the content of the role itself-I find there are many roles.

3. If there are, let's say, 20 astronauts, there may be two women among those 20 astronauts. If there are 20 FBI guys, there's one woman and the rest are men. So when somebody writes a script about life, usually the leading role will be the man, because mostly what women do is at home taking care of the children...That's the most important job there is on Earth. And why shouldn't women have it since they are the better of the two sexes?

4. I don't quite jump for joy, but I am awfully glad to see him.

5. First of all, you have to marry the right person. If you marry the wrong person for the wrong reasons, then no matter how hard you work, it's never going to work, because then you have to completely change yourself, completely change them, completely- by that time, you're both dead. So I think you have to marry for the right reasons, and marry the right person.

6. He understands not only with his brain but with his heart. And that might be called love. Not quite sure, but maybe that's the key.

7. I identified with both women. But Emma had a stronger message for the women I want to speak to now- women who work. I wanted to tell them that choosing to work doesn't make them oddballs and isn't antisocial.

8. I am quite surprised, that with all my work, and some of it is very, very good, that nobody talks about The Miracle Worker. We're talking about Mrs. Robinson. I understand the world... I'm just a little dismayed that people aren't beyond it yet.

9. To this day, when men meet me, there's always that movie in the back of their mind.

10. Life is here only to be lived so that we can, through life, earn the right to death, which to me is paradise. Whatever it is that will bring me the reward of paradise, I'll do the best I can.

11. The best way to get most husbands to do something is to suggest that perhaps they're too old to do it.

12. The studios wanted to give me the Monroe-type sex buildup. I wanted to develop my acting, not my body.

13. When Mel told his Jewish mother he was marrying an Italian girl, she said: 'Bring her over. I'll be in the kitchen- with my head in the oven'.

14. What I learned from her, really, was having a sense of humour and knowing how important laughter was. ~ Patty Duke

15. She was one of the most alive people I ever met-such exuberance-and she had this laugh in her that filled her from head to toe. ~ Dustin Hoffman

16. More happens in her face in 10 seconds than happens in most women's faces in 10 years. ~ Arthur Penn

17. You don't marry Mel Brooks, if you don't have a sense of humor. ~ Arthur Penn

18. Zen is not interested in high-flown statements; it wants its pupil to bite his apple and not discuss it.

19. The greatest way to get most husbands to eliminar la celulitis do one thing is to suggest that perhaps they're also old to do it.

20. The challenge, whenever you create anything, is to persevere and push away the negative voices. And the more you accomplish, the louder they get. The key is to shut them off and trust in your heart where you're going.

21. If you marry the wrong person for the wrong reasons, then no matter how hard you work, it's never going to work, because then you have to completely change yourself, completely change them, completely - by that time, you're both dead.

22. It's really important that, as women, we tell our stories. That is what helps seed our imaginations.

23. Girls should go on thinking that there is a world out there and that it is theirs for the taking.

24. Haiku is a particularly Zen form of poetry; for Zen detests egoism in the form of calculated effects or self-glorification of any sort. The author of haiku should be absent, and only the haiku present.

25. The things we overcome in life really become our strengths.

26. Slowing down reminds you that the journey is supposed to be fun.

27. The aim of Zen training is to attain the state of consciousness which occurs when the individual ego is emptied of itself and becomes identified with the infinite reality of all things.

28. The author of haiku should be absent, and only the haiku present.

29. I'd never had so much pleasure with another human being.

30. ... family and friends aren't always ready to make the journey when you are, and you just have to keep plowing along whether they have confidence in you or not. That can be very lonely.

31. “My heart flutters whenever I hear his key Turning int he door, and I think to myself, Oh goody, the party is about to begin.”