Ethel Barrymore

Ethel: (On Hollywood) It looks, it feels, as though it had been invented by a Sixth Avenue peepshow man.

Ethel: We who play, who entertain for a few years, what can we leave that will last?

Ethel: You grow up the day you have the first real laugh at yourself.

Ethel: The best time to make friends is before you need them.

Ethel: Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping.

Ethel: Fundamentally I feel that there is as much difference between the stage and the films as between a piano and a violin. Normally you can't become a virtuoso in both.

Ethel: [her last words] Is everybody happy? I want everybody to be happy. I know I'm happy.

Ethel: [on Hollywood] The people are unreal. The flowers are unreal, they don't smell. The fruit is unreal, it doesn't taste of anything. The whole place is a glaring, gaudy nightmarish set, built up in the desert.

Ethel: Half the people in Hollywood are dying to be discovered and the other half are afraid they will be.

Ethel: You must learn day by day, year by year to broaden your horizon. The more things you love, the more you are interested in, the more you enjoy, the more you are indignant about, the more you have left when anything happens.

Ethel: For an actress to be a success, she must have the face of a Venus, the brains of a Minerva, the grace of Terpsichore, the memory of a MaCaulay, the figure of Juno, and the hide of a rhinoceros.