Mercedes McCambridge Quotes

I think The Exorcist was the hardest work I've ever done.

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.

Most people call me Mercy. I like it.

My name is real, which probably explains why I never became a superstar ... how would that look in lights?

When I am rehearsing for a play, I try to read nothing that might distract my concentration from the work in progress.

My second marriage had a lot to do with alcohol.

I believe in joy, but I believe in the flip-side, agony.

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'm glad I am a woman who once danced naked in the Mediterranean Sea at midnight.

Alcohol is a very patient drug. It will wait for the alcoholic to pick it up one more time.

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.

Only a certain breed of actor should ever even try to work for Orson Welles. I'm glad I'm one of that breed.

I can only know what love is insofar as I can feel it.

Like many alcoholics, I was a staggering woman in a chic apartment, sick and utterly disgusting.

I cannot sustain hate for longer than a couple of years.

With two leftover husbands to account for, my wicked soul has just about shriveled and died.

I am responsible for no one but myself.

I don't think I should have been married ... to anybody.

I lose all control after two drinks of anything.

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.

There are zillions of people who say that alcoholism is a disease, but not many of them believe it.

Aside from my son, no person has ever shown for me the gentle concern I knew from Governor Adlai Stevenson.

I'd never been in play long enough for the flowers to die in the dressing room.

I am rich from the bequests other gifted people have seen fit to leave to me.

My admiration for the phenomenon of Alcoholics Anonymous is boundless.

I never wanted a Guardian Angel. I didn't ask for one. One was assigned to me.

My only true harmony lies deep within my soul, wherever that is. I know that somehow I am in tune with the universe.

A rich man can afford to be generous to many.

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 loved playing the part of the feisty Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker.

Joan Crawford is a movie queen. I had never met one before. I know now what I don't want to be.

One of the cruelest judgments sustained against me is that I have spoken out as a recovered alcoholic to stimulate my acting career.

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.

Neiman-Marcus is one thing, and the Dallas Cowboys are another.

I have always had a lot more trouble with my truths than with my deceits.

I've always had bronchitis. I've been administered the Sacrament of Death three times for it.

The great people I've met always have time for the niceties.

Young Jimmy Dean fell off the world as suddenly as he had come.

I was taught to be anti-Jewish.

I have no use for people who hunt for what they call sport.