Top 40 Mercedes McCambridge Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “I am responsible for no one but myself.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

2. “I’m glad I am a woman who once danced naked in the Mediterranean Sea at midnight.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

3. “The great people I’ve met always have time for the niceties.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

4. “My admiration for the phenomenon of Alcoholics Anonymous is boundless.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

5. “I think The Exorcist was the hardest work I’ve ever done.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

6. “Alcohol is a very patient drug. It will wait for the alcoholic to pick it up one more time.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

7. “Radio is truly the theater of the mind. The listener constructs the sets, colors them from his own palette, and sculpts and costumes the characters who perform in them.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

8. “I’ve always had bronchitis. I’ve been administered the Sacrament of Death three times for it.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

9. “My only true harmony lies deep within my soul, wherever that is. I know that somehow I am in tune with the universe.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

10. “Young Jimmy Dean fell off the world as suddenly as he had come.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

11. “I loved playing the part of the feisty Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

12. “Joan Crawford is a movie queen. I had never met one before. I know now what I don’t want to be.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

13. “I’d stand in line for Confession with old people and little kids, and as the line moved up, I knew when I got into the box that I would lie! Again!”

— Mercedes McCambridge

14. “I never wanted a Guardian Angel. I didn’t ask for one. One was assigned to me.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

15. “If I have to climb to heaven on a ladder, I shall decline the invitation.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

16. “A rich man can afford to be generous to many.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

17. “Neiman-Marcus is one thing, and the Dallas Cowboys are another.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

18. “I can only know what love is insofar as I can feel it.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

19. “I was taught to be anti-Jewish.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

20. “It is a remarkably beautiful piece of home furnishing, the Oscar. I used to keep it up in front of a mirror so that it looked like two.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

21. “So many people have really wanted to die. They seem ashamed to say so. I think it would help if they would say so.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

22. “Aside from my son, no person has ever shown for me the gentle concern I knew from Governor Adlai Stevenson.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

23. “At awards time, The Exorcist was nominated in 11 categories, everybody but the janitor was up for an Oscar. There was no category for what I did.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

24. “Like many alcoholics, I was a staggering woman in a chic apartment, sick and utterly disgusting.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

25. “I don’t think the Hollywood community is interested in what I can do. That’s all right. I’ve never looked for a job in my life, and I’m not going to start now. I have plenty to keep me busy.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

26. “With two leftover husbands to account for, my wicked soul has just about shriveled and died.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

27. “Only a certain breed of actor should ever even try to work for Orson Welles. I’m glad I’m one of that breed.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

28. “One of the cruelest judgments sustained against me is that I have spoken out as a recovered alcoholic to stimulate my acting career.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

29. “My second marriage had a lot to do with alcohol.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

30. “I cannot sustain hate for longer than a couple of years.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

31. “I have reached a state in life where I can buy a whole house full of chairs and can bump into them until they are black and blue.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

32. “I’d never been in play long enough for the flowers to die in the dressing room.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

33. “There are zillions of people who say that alcoholism is a disease, but not many of them believe it.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

34. “I can choose to accelerate my disease to an alcoholic death or incurable insanity, or I can choose to live within my thoroughly human condition.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

35. “I lose all control after two drinks of anything.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

36. “Most people call me Mercy. I like it.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

37. “I have no use for people who hunt for what they call sport.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

38. “I am rich from the bequests other gifted people have seen fit to leave to me.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

39. “When I am rehearsing for a play, I try to read nothing that might distract my concentration from the work in progress.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

40. “I believe in joy, but I believe in the flip-side, agony.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

41. “I find it next to impossible to remain politely silent when people prate to me about the glory of being given another chance to live happily ever after!”

— Mercedes McCambridge

42. “I have always had a lot more trouble with my truths than with my deceits.”

— Mercedes McCambridge