Helen Hayes Quotes

#1. Mere longevity is a good thing for those who watch Life from the side lines. For those who play the game, an hour may be a year, a single day's work an achievement for eternity. - Author: Helen Hayes

#2. Egocentrics are attracted to the inept. It gives them one more excuse for patting themselves on the back. - Author: Helen Hayes

#3. The old-fashioned idea that the simple piling up of experiences, one on top of another, can make you an artist, is, of course, so much rubbish. If acting were just a matter of experience, then any busy harlot could make Garbo's Camille pale. - Author: Helen Hayes

#4. The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy. - Author: Helen Hayes

#5. Love is perhaps the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity. - Author: Helen Hayes

#6. The theatre demanded of its members stamina, good digestion, the ability to adjust, and a strong sense of humor. There was no discomfort an actor didn't learn to endure. To survive, we had to be horses and we were. - Author: Helen Hayes

#7. When Charles first saw our child Mary, he said all the proper things for a new father. He looked upon the poor little red thing and blurted, "She's more beautiful than the Brooklyn Bridge." - Author: Helen Hayes

#8. There's a little vanity chair that Charlie gave me the first Christmas we knew each other. I'll not be parting with that, nor our bed - the four-poster - I'll be needing that to die in. - Author: Helen Hayes

#9. Victoria had the discipline of being a queen to help her through the biggest trial of her life - when she lost Albert and faltered. I've had the discipline of the theatre to help me over the ups and downs. A wonderful life . Go it old girl. You've done it well. - Author: Helen Hayes

#10. An actress always knows when she's hit it and mostly you haven't; but once or twice I think I hit it right, so maybe that's good enough for one life. - Author: Helen Hayes

#11. In this sometimes turbulent world, the river is a cosmic symbol of durability and destiny; awesome, but steadfast. In this period of deep national concern, I wish everyone could live for a while beside a great river. - Author: Helen Hayes

#12. We relish news of our heroes, forgetting that we are extraordinary to somebody too. - Author: Helen Hayes

#13. All through the long winter, I dream of my garden. On the first day of spring, I dig my fingers deep into the soft earth. I can feel its energy, and my spirits soar. - Author: Helen Hayes

#14. Actors cannot choose the manner in which they are born. Consequently, it is the one gesture in their lives completely devoid of self-consciousness. - Author: Helen Hayes

#15. You rest, you rust. - Author: Helen Hayes

#16. At 50, you need to laugh about your age. If you don't, everybody else will do it for you. Happy birthday, old chum! - Author: Helen Hayes

#17. Legends die hard. They survive as truth rarely does. - Author: Helen Hayes

#18. I'd like to do Harvey again. I did it two years ago with Helen Hayes in New York. It was a joy. I was so glad to do it again because I never thought I did it right the first time. - Author: James Stewart

#19. All my dogs have been scamps and thieves and troublemakers and I've adored them all. - Author: Helen Hayes

#20. From your parents you learn love and laughter and how to put one foot before the other. But when books are opened you discover that you have wings. - Author: Helen Hayes

#21. I'm leaving the screen because I don't think I am very good in the pictures and I have this beautiful dream that I'm elegant on the stage. - Author: Helen Hayes

#22. If you rest, you rust. - Author: Helen Hayes

#23. Actors work and slave and it is the color of your hair that can determine your fate in the end. - Author: Helen Hayes

#24. Age is not important unless you're a cheese. - Author: Helen Hayes

#25. There is only one terminal dignity - love. - Author: Helen Hayes

#26. The good die young - but not always. The wicked prevail - but not consistently. I am confused by life, and I feel safe within the confines of the theatre. - Author: Helen Hayes

#27. The worst constructed play is a Bach fugue when compared to life. - Author: Helen Hayes

#28. We may be living in the twentieth century, in resplendent sophistication. But deep down, most of us find ourselves still in the Stone Age of superstition. - Author: Helen Hayes

#29. HELEN HAYES: "Which part of The Divine Comedy do you like the most, Tiziano?"
TIZIANO CONTI: "The fifth Canto."
HELEN HAYES: "The Hell, huh?"
TIZIANO CONTI: "L'inferno depicts the truth. - Author: Merce Cardus

#30. When it comes to staying tuned: if you rest, you rust. - Author: Helen Hayes

#31. Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn't original sin. He's born with the tragedy that he has to grow up ... a lot of people don't have the courage to do it. - Author: Helen Hayes

#32. Our house was always filled with dogs ... They helped make our house a kennel, it is true, but the constant patter of their filthy paws and the dreadful results of their brainless activities have warmed me throughout the years. - Author: Helen Hayes

#33. Stardom can be a gilded slavery. - Author: Helen Hayes

#34. I cry out for order and find it only in art. - Author: Helen Hayes

#35. The faster we travel, the less there is to see. - Author: Helen Hayes

#36. every professional was once a beginner - Author: Helen Hayes

#37. Childhood is a short season. - Author: Helen Hayes

#38. When traveling with someone, take large does of patience and tolerance with your morning coffee. - Author: Helen Hayes

#39. The expert at anything was once a beginner. - Author: Helen Hayes

#40. Perhaps we have been misguided into taking too much responsibility from our children, leaving them too little room for discovery - Author: Helen Hayes

#41. We live in a very tense society. We are pulled apart ... and we all need to learn how to pull ourselves together ... I think that at least part of the answer lies in solitude. - Author: Helen Hayes

#42. Only the poet can look beyond the detail and see the whole picture. - Author: Helen Hayes

#43. I saw stars like Helen Hayes, Maurice Evans, Tallulah Bankhead and Cornelia Otis Skinner. It was enchanting. I knew that was the world I wanted to be in. - Author: Sada Thompson

#44. When books are opened, we discover that we have wings - Author: Helen Hayes

#45. People who refuse to rest honorably on their laurels when they reach retirement age seem very admirable to me. - Author: Helen Hayes

#46. Everybody starts at the top, and then has the problem of staying there. Lasting accomplishment, however, is still achieved through a long, slow climb and self-discipline. - Author: Helen Hayes

#47. One has to grow up with good talk in order to form the habit of it. - Author: Helen Hayes

#48. Yes, I have doubted. I have wandererd off the path. I have been lost. But I always returned. It is beyond the logic I seek. It is intuitive - an intrinsic, built-in sense of direction. I seem to find my way home. My faith has wavered but has saved me. - Author: Helen Hayes