Mercedes McCambridge Quotes

#1. 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

#2. My anger made me drink as an escape from reality, a way of forgetting. But you don't know when the medicinal effect ends and the poisoning begins ... This is my sixth year of sobriety. Overcoming alcoholism has been my greatest challenge and my greatest reward.

Mercedes McCambridge

#3. I have always had a lot more trouble with my truths than with my deceits.

Mercedes McCambridge

#4. 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

#5. I've always had bronchitis. I've been administered the Sacrament of Death three times for it.

Mercedes McCambridge

#6. I lose all control after two drinks of anything.

Mercedes McCambridge

#7. I was taught to be anti-Jewish.

Mercedes McCambridge

#8. Most people call me Mercy. I like it.

Mercedes McCambridge

#9. 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

#10. I have no use for people who hunt for what they call sport.

Mercedes McCambridge

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

Mercedes McCambridge

#12. Neiman-Marcus is one thing, and the Dallas Cowboys are another.

Mercedes McCambridge

#13. 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

#14. Joan Crawford is a movie queen. I had never met one before. I know now what I don't want to be.

Mercedes McCambridge

#15. It is said that people learn to hate each other because of little things ... not big ones. I know I have always learned to love because of little things ... I'm not at all sure that there are any big ones.

Mercedes McCambridge

#16. I'm glad I am a woman who once danced naked in the Mediterranean Sea at midnight.

Mercedes McCambridge

#17. I believe in joy, but I believe in the flip-side, agony.

Mercedes McCambridge

#18. I am responsible for no one but myself.

Mercedes McCambridge

#19. With two leftover husbands to account for, my wicked soul has just about shriveled and died.

Mercedes McCambridge

#20. My admiration for the phenomenon of Alcoholics Anonymous is boundless.

Mercedes McCambridge

#21. The great people I've met always have time for the niceties.

Mercedes McCambridge

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

Mercedes McCambridge

#23. I think The Exorcist was the hardest work I've ever done.

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

Mercedes McCambridge

#26. I am rich from the bequests other gifted people have seen fit to leave to me.

Mercedes McCambridge

#27. Like many alcoholics, I was a staggering woman in a chic apartment, sick and utterly disgusting.

Mercedes McCambridge

#28. 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

#29. 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

#30. 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

#31. The Irish ... are full of the fear of the Lord and the joy of living, and they don't know how to combine the two, but they'll sure have a good time trying.

Mercedes McCambridge

#32. 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

#33. If I have to climb to heaven on a ladder, I shall decline the invitation.

Mercedes McCambridge

#34. A rich man can afford to be generous to many.

Mercedes McCambridge

#35. Young Jimmy Dean fell off the world as suddenly as he had come.

Mercedes McCambridge

#36. I can only know what love is insofar as I can feel it.

Mercedes McCambridge

#37. I don't think I should have been married ... to anybody.

Mercedes McCambridge

#38. My name is real, which probably explains why I never became a superstar ... how would that look in lights?

Mercedes McCambridge

#39. I never wanted a Guardian Angel. I didn't ask for one. One was assigned to me.

Mercedes McCambridge

#40. I'd never been in play long enough for the flowers to die in the dressing room.

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 cannot sustain hate for longer than a couple of years.

Mercedes McCambridge

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

Mercedes McCambridge

#44. My second marriage had a lot to do with alcohol.

Mercedes McCambridge

#45. 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

#46. 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

#47. 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