10 quotes
Spending money you don't have for things you don't need to impress people you don't like.
I never lie unless it is absolutely necessary. Or convenient.
What Time's the Next Swan? (1962)
I don't know if that character trait was deplorable or laudable; I only know that I have never been able to lose it.
What Time's the Next Swan? (1962)
After America had entered the war in December 1941 all postal service with Germany and Austria was stopped. But Papa had faithfully kept on writing to me, a ten-page letter nearly every week.
What Time's the Next Swan? (1962)
You have to work five or six years in the theatre—in hit shows—to make people sick and tired of you, but this you can accomplish in only a few weeks on television. It's a remarkable medium.
Biographies usually begin with the smack on the bottom and the first lusty cry of the subject. I deplore this literary custom, because it is impossible to remember anything about one's birth firsthand. It is bound to be hearsay, and embellished, gilded hearsay at that.
What Time's the Next Swan? (1962)
You have to be prepared for all the awful things that happen to actors, the rejection, humiliation, and embarrassment and receiving bad reviews if you do get a job. You have to be prepared for all of that.
In that wonderful musical show Knickerbocker Holiday Maxwell Anderson defined the outstanding characteristics of an American as "one who refuses to take orders!"
I think that I qualified for that, my chosen nationality, at an early age.
What Time's the Next Swan? (1962)
Somehow the stagehand on the other side got his signals mixed, started pulling, and the swan left without Papa. He quietly turned around and said: "What time's the next swan?"
That story has since become a classic in operatic lore.
What Time's the Next Swan? (1962)
I followed everybody's advice.
What Time's the Next Swan? (1962)