Top 40 Mercedes McCambridge Quotes (2025 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. “Alcohol is a very patient drug. It will wait for the alcoholic to pick it up one more time.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

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

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

— Mercedes McCambridge

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

— Mercedes McCambridge

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

— Mercedes McCambridge

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

— Mercedes McCambridge

15. “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

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

— Mercedes McCambridge

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

— Mercedes McCambridge

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

— Mercedes McCambridge

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

— 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. “I was taught to be anti-Jewish.”

— Mercedes McCambridge

22. “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

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

— Mercedes McCambridge

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

— Mercedes McCambridge

25. “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

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

— Mercedes McCambridge

27. “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

28. “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

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

— Mercedes McCambridge

30. “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

31. “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

32. “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

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

— Mercedes McCambridge

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

— Mercedes McCambridge

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

— Mercedes McCambridge

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

— Mercedes McCambridge

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

— Mercedes McCambridge

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

— Mercedes McCambridge

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

— Mercedes McCambridge

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

— 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