Faye Dunaway Quotes Page 2

“I'm still the little southern girl from the wrong side of the tracks who really didn't feel like she belonged.”

“I'm very much a loner. I always think I would like to have a partner in life, and I would – if I could find the right person, I think.”

“If you don't eat properly, it affects your energy level. You are an athlete when you're onstage. You can't get tired.”

“In this country, it is always noticed when an older woman, even just a year older, is involved with a younger man. It is one of the sillinesses of society – if a woman is any older than a man, much is made of it.”

“It's awfully hard to make marriage work. I've tried twice and I don't know how. To have to think of somebody else so much of the time. It's such a compromise.”

“It's hard to be young because you don't know who you are and must constantly search for to find yourself. Time has helped me there, and I feel more clear and calm now.”

“It's interesting as one grows older to keep in touch with the cutting edge.”

“It's not age that makes a life. It's what you do with it.”

“It's true, I did a lot of great movies, and I'm happy. It was what it was, and now I think all of that has fed into where I am now, and I think it has taught me a lot.”

“Life is a process of trying to be as good as you can be. It's the striving toward a kind of perfection, knowing that you're never going to quite achieve it. But it's the trying for it that makes the difference.”

“My mother's passion for something more, to write a different destiny for a dirt-poor farmer's daughter, was to shape my entire life.”

“Once you reach a certain age, you realize that men aren't as important as you once thought they were.”

“People will say whatever they say and I have no power over it.”

“Roman Polanski was very much an autocrat, always forcing things. It ranged from the physical to the mental. He was very domineering and abrasive and made it clear he wanted to manipulate the performance. That approach has never worked with me.”

“So many people are called but few serve as actors, you know what I mean?”

“Success is a relative quotient, and fame can be ephemeral. An Oscar is something that becomes a part of your record, a tangible acknowledgement that your efforts have made a difference.”

“The film 'Bonnie and Clyde' touched the core of my being. Never have I felt so close to a character as I felt to Bonnie. She was a yearning, edgy, ambitious southern girl who wanted to get out of wherever she was. I knew everything about wanting to get out, and the getting out doesn't come easy. But with Bonnie there was a real tragic irony. She got out only to see that she was heading nowhere and that the end was death.”

“The last role I played that really touched me and where I was able to access what I really am was Bonnie, which is kind of sad when you think how early in my career that was.”

“The minute you start believing your own success, you're on the road to ruin.”

“The movie 'Bonnie and Clyde' put me firmly in the ranks of actresses that would do work that was art. There are those who elevate the craft of acting to the art of acting, and now I would be among them. I was the golden girl at that time. One of those women who was going to be nominated year after year for an Oscar and would win at least one. The movie established the quality of my work. 'Bonnie and Clyde' would also turn me into a star.”

“The whole era when I was busy being a big movie star was terribly disconcerting. I was cared for and cosseted, and yet I was totally dependent. I didn't know where the cornflakes were kept. I didn't know how to turn on the washing machine. That might sound very chic, but I'm telling you: When you don't know how your own life works, you get disconnected.”

“Unless you come to terms with your past it haunts you, and you never leave it.”

“When anyone asks where I want to be 10 years from now, all I can say is I'd like to be better, as an actress and as a woman.”

“When I was discovered, everything happened like dominos. I don't know how to talk about it now because it's too mindblowing. It's so unreal, and yet it's real.”

“When someone is successful, there's always a feeling that they were lucky. Luck plays a part, sure, but to be successful, you must have iron discipline. You must have energy and hunger and desire and honesty.”

“When you're younger they always try to get you to do every ninny role that's going.”

“With the exception of my mother, my brother, and my beloved son, William Alfred has been without question the most important single figure in my lifetime. A teacher, a mentor, and I suppose the father I never had, the parent and companion I would always wanted, if that choice had been mine. He has taught me so much about the virtue of a simple life, about spirituality, about the purity of real beauty, and how to go at this messy business of life.”

“Work is a salvation. Work is how you connect with who you are, no matter how painful it might be.”

“Work often becomes a substitute for living. But I think the most successful artists, and the happiest people, find a fullness in both areas.”

“Years are not important, my dear.”