Top 90 Lauren Bacall Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Standing still is the fastest way of moving backwards in a rapidly changing world.”

— Lauren Bacall

2. “Life is not what you expected it to be.”

— Lauren Bacall

3. “You don’t always win your battles, but it’s good to know you fought.”

— Lauren Bacall

4. “Imagination is the highest kite that can fly.”

— Lauren Bacall

5. “I like to work with really good professional people – anyone with real talent.”

— Lauren Bacall

6. “If you want me just whistle. You know how to whistle don’t you? Just put your lips together and blow.”

— Lauren Bacall

7. “A planned life is a dead life.”

— Lauren Bacall

8. “I spent my childhood in New York, riding on subways and buses. And you know what you learn if you’re a New Yorker? The world doesn’t owe you a damn thing.”

— Lauren Bacall

9. “Here is a test to find out whether your mission in life is complete. If you’re alive, it isn’t.”

— Lauren Bacall

10. “Each time a friend dies, the present becomes the past, in an instant.”

— Lauren Bacall

11. “I am not a has-been. I am a will be.”

— Lauren Bacall

12. “It’s not an old movie if you haven’t seen it.”

— Lauren Bacall

13. “Stardom isn’t a profession, it’s an accident.”

— Lauren Bacall

14. “I don’t think being the only child of a single parent helped. I was always a little unsteady in my self-belief. Then there was the Jewish thing. I love being Jewish, I have no problem with it at all. But it did become like a scar, with all these people saying you don’t look it.”

— Lauren Bacall

15. “The best things in life are clean living, good works, and big saphires. And not in that order.”

— Lauren Bacall

16. “You spend a good part of your adult life acquiring things: building a home, filling it with objects that please your eye and make you feel comfortable. Then you spend the last part of your life trying to figure out how to get rid of it all.”

— Lauren Bacall

17. “The biggest misconception people have about me is that I’m in control of every situation. I’m rarely in control of any situation.”

— Lauren Bacall

18. “I’m total, total, total liberal and proud of it.”

— Lauren Bacall

19. “I’ve always felt that work – learning from people who know more than I know – is what keeps you going.”

— Lauren Bacall

20. “I’m crazy enough to believe in taking chances in every way, in making choices and gambling with your life. That’s the kind of gambling I believe in.”

— Lauren Bacall

21. “I am essentially a loner.”

— Lauren Bacall

22. “Men need to feel important. They feel better when they’re with younger girls or unknown girls.”

— Lauren Bacall

23. “As long as I can walk and talk, I’ll try almost anything. I say “almost” because the high wire is definitely out.”

— Lauren Bacall

24. “No one has ever written a romance better than we lived it.”

— Lauren Bacall

Featured in: Romance Quotes

25. “If goodness is its own reward, shouldn’t we get a little something for being naughty?”

— Lauren Bacall

26. “I always thought I had crooked eyebrows and crooked teeth. That’s why I never understood why people called me a beauty.”

— Lauren Bacall

27. “I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that.”

— Lauren Bacall

28. “Generally women are better than men – they have more character. I prefer men for some things, obviously, but women have a greater sense of honor and are more willing to take a chance with their lives.”

— Lauren Bacall

29. “Find me a man who’s interesting enough to have dinner with and I’ll be happy.”

— Lauren Bacall

30. “We live in an age of mediocrity.”

— Lauren Bacall

31. “The purity of Jewish upbringing – the restrictions that one carries through life being a ‘nice Jewish girl’ – what a burden.”

— Lauren Bacall

32. “Being a liberal is the best thing on earth you can be. You are welcoming to everyone when you’re a liberal. You do not have a small mind.”

— Lauren Bacall

33. “Most women use more brains picking a horse in the third at Belmont than they do picking a husband.”

— Lauren Bacall

34. “I’ll miss Hollywood. Of the twenty friends I thought I had, I’ll miss the six I really had.”

— Lauren Bacall

35. “In the world of relationships, possibly the most complicated, uncommon, hard to find, hard to keep and most rewarding has got to be friendship.”

— Lauren Bacall

36. “My mother was the greatest example to me of anyone I’ve ever known. She didn’t have an easy life. I adored her. She worked hard all her life, and she was the one who set my values. She was quite an amazing woman, although she wasn’t tough at all.”

— Lauren Bacall

37. “If there was one thing I had never been, it was mysterious, and if there was one thing I had never done, it was not talk.”

— Lauren Bacall

38. “One thing I am convinced of is that the more you do, the more you can do.”

— Lauren Bacall

39. “Patience was not my strong point.”

— Lauren Bacall

Featured in: Strong Quotes

40. “After the age of 30 in the movie profession, you’re pretty well over as far as the casting people are concerned.”

— Lauren Bacall

41. “I fairly often have thought how lucky I was. I knew everybody because I was married to Bogie, and that 25-year difference was the most fantastic thing for me to have in my life.”

— Lauren Bacall

42. “You can’t start worrying about what’s going to happen. You get spastic enough worrying about what’s happening now.”

— Lauren Bacall

43. “People should tell your children what life is all about – it’s about work...”

— Lauren Bacall

44. “When a woman reaches twenty-six in America, she’s on the slide. It’s downhill all the way from then on. It doesn’t give you a tremendous feeling of confidence and well-being.”

— Lauren Bacall

45. “I was this flat-chested, big-footed, lanky thing.”

— Lauren Bacall

46. “There are guys who want to screw around all the time, which interests me not at all. God knows we’ve done that, been there, and we don’t want to do that any more.”

— Lauren Bacall

47. “Legends are all to do with the past and nothing to do with the present.”

— Lauren Bacall

48. “How in hell can you handle love without turning your life upside down? That’s what love does, it changes everything.”

— Lauren Bacall

49. “I always brought up my children not to believe in Mothers Day gifts, and now I regret it.”

— Lauren Bacall

50. “The first time anything happens to you – your first love, your first success – the second one is never the same.”

— Lauren Bacall

Featured in: Firsts Quotes