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Ruth Gordon
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“The best impromptu speeches are the ones written well in advance.”
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“... he's seen so many plays he uses dialogue instead of conversation.”
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“Lawyers should never marry other lawyers. This is called inbreeding, from which come idiot children and more lawyers.”
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“I think there is one smashing rule: never face the facts.”
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“Anything that begins 'I don't know how to tell you this' is never good news.”
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“Courage is very important. Like a muscle, it is strengthened by use.”
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“Life is getting through the moment. The philosopher William James says to cultivate the cheerful attitude. Now nobody had more trouble than he did — except me. I had more trouble in my life than anybody. But your first big trouble can be a bonanza if you live through it. Get through the first trouble, you'll probably make it through the next one.”
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“At seventy-four I'm getting minor raves on my looks, but I'm caught in the middle. Who knows what seventy-four looks like? Who cares? But if I'd listened to my friends, I could now lie and say I'm eighty-four. For eighty-four, the way I look is spectacular.”
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“I never 'faced facts' in life, so I survived. If I'd faced facts, I would have realized that I was a plain little girl with bow legs from Quincy, Massachusetts, and never gone on the stage. You must never face facts.”
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“Discussing how old you are is the temple of boredom.”
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“When you finally learn how to do it, you're too old for the good parts.”
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“How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?”
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“If you believe, then you hang on. If you believe, it means you've got imagination, you don't need stuff thrown out for you in a blueprint, you don't have to face facts. ... What can stop you? If you don't make it today, it'll come in tomorrow.”
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“In the old days, ptomaine poisoning was a cover-all. If you missed a show and you were young, it meant you were having an abortion. If you were old, it meant you were having a face lift.”
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“To get it right, be born with luck or else make it. Never give up. Get the knack of getting people to help you and also pitch in yourself. A little money helps, but what really gets it right is to never — I repeat never — under any condition face the facts.”
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“If you believe, then you hang on. If you believe, it means you've got imagination, you don't need stuff drawn out for you in a blueprint, you don't face facts — what can stop you? If I don't make it today, I'll come in tomorrow.”
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“Sometimes what you want you don't get until you don't want it anymore.”
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“Acting is the use of human experience with talent added ...”
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“By the time you know how to act, you're too old to do it.”
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“Despair is your friend in show business. I don't believe you can act if happiness is your lot. It's the ups that keep you living and the downs that mete out talent.”
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“If you're thinking of becoming a critic, why not make other plans?”
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“Live long enough and you'll come into pensions, a lovely thing. Presents every month from people you didn't know cared.”
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“Get up early in the morning before everybody has breathed up all the good air.”
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“Do people get moral when they don't get ahead?”
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“Courage is like a strain of yoghurt culture, if you have some you can have some more.”
Ruth Gordon, U.S. actor, scriptwriter
(1896 - 1985)
Full name: Ruth Jones Gordon.