Quotes by Mercedes McCambridge

• I'm glad I am a woman who once danced naked in the Mediterranean Sea at midnight.
• My admiration for the phenomenon of Alcoholics Anonymous is boundless.
• Most people call me Mercy. I like it.
• Like many alcoholics, I was a staggering woman in a chic apartment, sick and utterly disgusting.
• Joan Crawford is a movie queen. I had never met one before. I know now what I don't want to be.
• 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.
• My name is real, which probably explains why I never became a superstar... how would that look in lights?
• I've always had bronchitis. I've been administered the Sacrament of Death three times for it.
• So many people have really wanted to die. They seem ashamed to say so. I think it would help if they would say so.
• 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!
• If I have to climb to heaven on a ladder, I shall decline the invitation.
• My only true harmony lies deep within my soul, wherever that is. I know that somehow I am in tune with the universe.
• My second marriage had a lot to do with alcohol.
• Neiman-Marcus is one thing, and the Dallas Cowboys are another.
• Only a certain breed of actor should ever even try to work for Orson Welles. I'm glad I'm one of that breed.
• The great people I've met always have time for the niceties.
• There are zillions of people who say that alcoholism is a disease, but not many of them believe it.
• When I am rehearsing for a play, I try to read nothing that might distract my concentration from the work in progress.
• With two leftover husbands to account for, my wicked soul has just about shriveled and died.
• 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.
• I'd never been in play long enough for the flowers to die in the dressing room.
• Young Jimmy Dean fell off the world as suddenly as he had come.
• One of the cruelest judgments sustained against me is that I have spoken out as a recovered alcoholic to stimulate my acting career.
• I can only know what love is insofar as I can feel it.
• A rich man can afford to be generous to many.
• Alcohol is a very patient drug. It will wait for the alcoholic to pick it up one more time.
• Aside from my son, no person has ever shown for me the gentle concern I knew from Governor Adlai Stevenson.
• I am responsible for no one but myself.
• I am rich from the bequests other gifted people have seen fit to leave to me.
• 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.
• I was taught to be anti-Jewish.
• I don't think I should have been married... to anybody.
• I loved playing the part of the feisty Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker.
• I think The Exorcist was the hardest work I've ever done.
• I believe in joy, but I believe in the flip-side, agony.
• I never wanted a Guardian Angel. I didn't ask for one. One was assigned to me.
• 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.
• I lose all control after two drinks of anything.
• 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.
• I have no use for people who hunt for what they call sport.
• I have always had a lot more trouble with my truths than with my deceits.
• 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!