Mary Pickford Quotes
106 Mary Pickford Quotes
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There was very little a family like ours could do on a Sunday.
Mary Pickford
Mother had real talent. More than I ever imagined she’d have. And she could mimic almost any accent.
Mary Pickford
I wanted nice things.
Mary Pickford
[On combining acting and business management at United Artists] I would like to concentrate on acting alone, but I realize I can’t.
Mary Pickford
[In 1923 on her early films] The stories were sudden, abrupt, and somewhat disconcerting. They attempted to cover too much, and the treatment was always sacrificed to the happenings, which were often not too closely related. If a character was wanted anyplace, he turned up. The sets alongside of the excellent work done today were crude and the furnishings were meager... We never changed costumes in a picture. Ten years might elapse and the leading man would be wearing the same checked shirt.
Mary Pickford
I am sick of Cinderella parts, of wearing rags and tatters. I want to wear smart clothes and play the lover… I created a certain type of character and now, I think, it is practically finished.
Mary Pickford
No woman should ever play a male role – ever.
Mary Pickford
Only the waltz or two-step. We never ‘jazz.’
Mary Pickford
[On preventing her husband from watching a dance marathon on a pier] You know we can’t be seen in a place like that. [Her husband answered ‘Tupper love, your steel hand is showing through your velvet glove.’]
Mary Pickford
[To one of her servants who served filet mignon but it was tough] For the money I pay for you – I want the best, and I want it now.
Mary Pickford
Dear Miss Shaw: You look so lonesome sitting there. I wonder if we may join you? - Mary Pickford.
Mary Pickford
To whom can we look for advance, for fresh vigor? There are no so many [new directors], are there?
Mary Pickford
There goes trouble.
Mary Pickford
This is a love story. You’ve got to put in a sequence that makes the ending important. [‘I’m not making it!’ – Ernst Lubtisch] This is the first time you’ve met me, as the financial back and producer? [‘Vatt iss dis? – Lubtisch] I’m telling you, that I am the Court of Last Appeal. I’m putting up the money. I am the star, and I am the one that’s known. I won’t embarrass you. I will never say anything before the company. If I have anything to say, I’ll say it as I’m saying it now… But you are not going to have the last word.
Mary Pickford
[On having a German director] Now look, boys and girls. If you went to Germany and tried to direct, you might say things that weren’t proper yourselves. But you wouldn’t like everybody to laugh at you. Now the first person that laughs on this stage will have to leave.
Mary Pickford
[On the precarious state of United Artists whilst Neilan was having a drinking problem] I would rather you put your hand in my pocketbook, than steal the time and patience of my entire company, to say nothing of your own.
Mary Pickford
[On ‘Little Annie Rooney’ in 1925] It took me hours to get back into the mood… Had it been make-believe and nothing more, I could have turned it on and off at will. But I really was that bereaved little orphan.
Mary Pickford
He proved to be a complete boiled egg… The business of von Sternberg and carrying a cane, and that little moustache! I’m so glad I didn’t do the film.
Mary Pickford
The culture and talent of Europe are at the command of Hollywood.
Mary Pickford
Writers who have been taught to express themselves in the written word find difficulty in expressing themselves in action. It is like elderly persons learning to speak a foreign language – they speak the motion picture language with an accent. We will get away from this by using those from within who have grown up in the industry. They will know no other tongue.
Mary Pickford
The refined simplicity should develop out of the complex… it would have been more logical if silent pictures had grown out of the talkie instead of the other way round.
Mary Pickford
I sometimes wonder, whether, in the still, sleepless hours of the night, the consciences of these professional gossips do not stalk them.
Mary Pickford
[When concerned about security when meeting reporters in a hotel and being assured that no one could reach her without a special pass to use the elevator] But couldn’t they walk up? [The hotel management replied that her suite was on the thirty-sixth floor] They could rest on the way.
Mary Pickford
[On Shirley Temple] Oh, she was the cutest baby.
Mary Pickford
[On not attending Douglas Fairbank’s funeral] I think it’s barbaric to look at dead people. The second the spirit leaves the body, the body is nothing but an empty shell.
Mary Pickford
[To Charlie Chaplin] You are the last person in the motion picture industry who should ever question my good faith and loyalty to you. But if after twenty-five years of such close partnership, you still don’t know me, Charlie, it is useless for me to set forth the innumerable times I have stood loyally by you and have closed my eyes to the many hurts, rebuffs and humiliations I have endured at your hand.
Mary Pickford
[On future dealings with Charlie Chaplin] My credit is nothing to the United Artists. If my credit was run like that of the United Artists I would be penniless today. Any business dealings I may be forced to have with him will be done as though with a total stranger.
Mary Pickford
[On suggestions by FDR (Franklin D Roosevelt) that Mary run for the Senate] I rejected the idea, because my thinking and his were so far apart.
Mary Pickford
[On both her and Shirley Temple in a photo together being captioned as ‘Two Greatest Has-Beens’] How could I resent being labeled a has-been when I am placed in the same division as a junior miss of 15? Junior Miss is the title of the picture I am shortly to produce… Many of my friends complimented me and there were some who even said I looked like Shirley Temple’s sister. Now tell me – after that would I think of suing Life [Magazine]? It never entered my head.
Mary Pickford
I had maternal designs on every baby that played with me on the screen.
Mary Pickford
More than I ever wanted anything in my life, I wanted that baby.
Mary Pickford
Between you and me, a dividend was declared in 1940 and I have yet to receive it.
Mary Pickford
[On Charlie Chaplin selling his shares in United Artists in March 1955] I credit my eyes out over that, though I wouldn’t let Charlie see me. A woman should never take unfair advantage of a man that way.
Mary Pickford
I never wanted Chaplin in the company, that was Douglas’s idea.
Mary Pickford
[On selling her United Artists shares for $3 million in February 1956] I sold because there were too many problems and nothing was the same.
Mary Pickford
I am not for socialized medicine, but there should be some way to stop waste in government and provide the dollars necessary to take care of our poor old people.
Mary Pickford
I am no Communist but I don’t think that anybody, including Chaplin, should be condemned without his day in court.
Mary Pickford
I’m going to fight for the right – for his right, your right and my right to stand up for what we believe in… I’m going to risk the wrath of people that are so poisonous that if you will disagree with them they would have you thrown in jail. And that is the hole in the dike that I spoke about. It is the crumbling of the ramparts we watch.
Mary Pickford
It nearly drives me mad leaving out so many things I know but can’t print…
Mary Pickford
[On Sam Goldwyn outbidding her on one court appointed property auction on a silly squabble] I want to forget business for a while.
Mary Pickford
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