GREAT HOLLYWOOD QUOTES:

John Barrymore

Alfred Hitchcock

Bob Hope

Frances Marion

Groucho Marx

Joan Crawford

Mae West

Ray Harryhausen

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JOHN BARRYMORE:

[From Try and Stop Me, by Bennett Cerf, Kingsport Press, New York, 1944:] 

During a rehearsal of a John Barrymore play, the leading lady aroused the star’s ire, an incautious procedure, to say the least.  Barrymore gave a pungent lecture on her paternity and nocturnal pursuits.  “Kindly remember,” interpolated the actress, “that I am a lady!”

“Madam,” snapped Barrymore, “I will respect your secret.”

A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.

America is the country where you can buy a lifetime supply of aspirin for one dollar and use it up in two weeks.

Die?  I should say not, dear fellow.  No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him.

Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn’t know you had left open.

I am thinking of taking a fifth wife.  Why not?  Solomon had a thousand wives and he is a synonym for wisdom.

I would like to find a stew that will give me heartburn immediately instead of at three o’clock in the morning.

I’ve read some of your modern free verse and wonder who set it free.

If it isn’t the sheriff, it’s the finance company; I’ve got more attachments on me than a vacuum cleaner.

In Genesis, it says that it is not good for a man to be alone; but sometimes it is a great relief.

Love is the delightful interval between meeting a beautiful girl and discovering that she looks like a haddock.

My wife is the kind of girl who will not go anywhere without her mother, and her mother will go anywhere.

Sex:  The thing that takes up the least amount of time and causes the most amount of trouble.

The good die young, because they see it’s no use living if you have got to be good.

The trouble with life is that there are so many beautiful women and so little time.

Why is there so much month left at the end of the money?

ALFRED HITCHCOCK:

Disney has the best casting.

If he doesn’t like an actor he just tears him up.

Give them pleasure – the same pleasure they have when they wake up from any nightmare.

I am a typed director. 

If I made Cinderella, they’d look for a body in the coach.

Seeing a murder on television can help work off aggressions.

And if you don’t have any antagonisms, the commercials will give you some.

Television has brought back murder to the home – where it belongs.

When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, “It’s in the script.”

If he says, “What’s my motivation?”  I say, “Your salary.”

BOB HOPE:

A James Cagney love scene is where he lets the other guy live.

I want to tell you, I was built like an athlete once – big chest, hard stomach.  Of course, that’s all behind me now.

I’m so old they’ve canceled my blood type.

If you watch a game, it’s fun.

If you play at it, it’s recreation.

If you work at it, it’s golf.

My father told me all about the birds and the bees, the liar – I went steady with a woodpecker till I was twenty-one.

“Virus” is a Latin word used by doctors to mean, “your guess is as good as mine.”

FRANCES MARION

(Mary Pickford’s best friend and official screen writer about a third party):

“I don’t know why she doesn’t like me.  I never did anything for her.”

GROUCHO MARX:

A man is only as old as the woman he feels.

A woman is an occasional pleasure but a cigar is always a smoke.

Alimony is like buying for hay for a dead horse.

All people are born alike – except for Republicans and Democrats.

Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.

Behind every great man is a woman, behind her is his wife.

I didn’t like the play but then I saw it under adverse conditions – The curtain was up.

I don’t care to belong to a club that has members like me.

I have had a perfectly wonder evening, but this wasn’t it.

I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.

I remember the first time I had sex – I kept the receipt.

I was married by a judge.

I should have asked for a jury.

I’ve got the brain of a four-year-old.

I bet he was glad to get rid of it.

If I held you any closer I’d be on the other side of you.

If you’ve heard of this story before, don’t stop me.

I’d enjoy hearing it again.

In Hollywood, brides keep the bouquets and throw away the groom.

Marry me and I’ll never look at an other horse!

One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas.

What he was doing in my pajamas I’ll never know.

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.

Remember, we’re fighting for this woman’s honor, which is more than she’s ever done!

Room Service?  Send up a larger room.

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing.  If you can fake that, you can fake anything.

Well, Art is Art, isn’t it?  Still, on the other hand, water is water.  And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste more like prunes than rhubarb does.  Now tell me what you know.

Whoever called it necking was a poor judge of anatomy.

A four-year-old child would understand this report.  Run out and find me a four-year-old child.  I can’t make head or tail of it.

I would horse-whip you if I had a horse.

Women should be obscene and not heard.

JOAN CRAWFORD:

[To an old friend over huevos rancheros with hot sauce and chili powder:] 

Only a couple of dames like us who were born in Texas could eat this food for breakfast and not die.

MAE WEST:

[Asked if she ever met a man who could make her happy:]

Sure, lots of times.

[She asked a man how tall he was.  He replied, “6’7”.”]

Let’s forget about the six feet and talk about the seven inches.

A hard man is good to find.

A man can be short and dumpy and getting bald but if he has fire, women will like him.

A man in the house is worth two in the street.

A man’s kiss is his signature.

An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises.

Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly.

Don’t marry a man to reform him – that’s what reform schools are for.

Give a man a free hand and he’ll run it all over you.

Good sex is like good bridge.  If you don’t have a good partner, you’d better have a good hand.

He who hesitates is a damned fool.

He’s the kind of man a woman would have to marry to get rid of.

I avoid temptation at all costs; unless, of course, I cannot resist it!

I believe in censorship.

After all, I made a fortune out of it!

I like restraint, if it doesn’t go too far.

I never loved another person the way I loved myself.

I never worry about diets.

The only carrots that interest me are the number of carats in a diamond.

I only have “yes” men around me.

Who needs “no” men?

I used to be Snow White but I drifted!

I wouldn’t even lift my veil for that guy.

I wouldn’t let him touch me, even with a ten-foot pole.

I’ll try anything one, twice if I like it, three times to make sure.

If I asked for a cup of coffee, someone would search for the meaning.

Is that a gun in your pocket or are you glad to see me?!

It ain’t no sin if you crack a few laws now and then, just as long as you don’t break any.

It’s better to be looked over than overlooked.

It’s hard to be funny when you have to be clean.

It’s not the men in your life that count, it’s the life in my men.

It’s not what I do, but the way I do it.

It’s not what I say, but the way I say it.

Keep a diary and someday it’ll keep you.

One and one is two, and two and two is four, and five will get you ten if you know how to work it.

Save a boyfriend for a rainy day – and another, in case it doesn’t rain.

Say what you want about long dresses, but they cover a multitude of sins.

Sex is emotion in motion.

She’s the kind of girl who climbed the ladder of success wrong by wrong.

Ten men waiting for me at the door?  Send one of them home, I’m tired.

The curve is more powerful than the sword.

To err is human, but it feels divine.

Too much of a good thing can be taxing.

Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.

Virtue has its own reward but no sale at the box office.

When caught between two evils, I generally try the one I’ve never tried before!

When I’m good, I’m very good; but when I’m bad, I’m better!

You only live once; but if you do it right, once is enough!

RAY HARRYHAUSEN:

I brought in the stories many times. I don't just do animation.

I had to learn to do everything because I couldn't find another kindred soul. Now you see eighty people listed doing the same things I was doing by myself.

I know pretty well in the broad sense what I'm going to do, because I have to know that when we shoot the live-action, so that it'll synchronize. Then I know pretty well when I get to the animation stage, what that scene requires.

I prefer to work alone and do everything alone, even today.

I took courses at USC in film editing and art direction and photography when I was still in high school.

I was never restricted. I was never told what to do.

I was very limited in what I could do with flying saucers, because they're just a metal disc. I had to try and put character in as if they were intelligently guided.

Many times I felt like I'd do better than what the director did, but some of them got a little discouraged because they didn't have full charge of making the film, and sometimes there'd be battles of egos.

So our films had a lot more to them than entertainment value, and I'm glad that a lot of people recognize that now. People realize now the value of them as educational.

That's why I never became a director. I never had patience with people.