Quotations
What was
actually said.
Every line below is attributed to a printed interview, memoir, or archival transcript. Where a quotation is widely repeated but unverifiable, we leave it out.
“Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant.”
Cary Grant · 1963
His most-quoted line about the distance between Archibald Leach and the persona he built; repeated by Grant in interviews across the 1960s and 1970s.
“I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until finally I became that person. Or he became me.”
Cary Grant · 1970
On the deliberate construction of the Cary Grant persona.
“My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can.”
Cary Grant · 1965
A characteristic deflection of a question about the secret to his longevity.
“To play yourself, your true self, is the hardest thing in the world to do.”
Cary Grant · 1963
On screen acting and the discipline of appearing effortless.
“I think that making love is the best form of exercise.”
Cary Grant · 1970
A press remark, delivered deadpan, on keeping fit in later life.
“Probably no greater honour can come to any man than the appreciation and respect of his fellow workers.”
Cary Grant · 1970
Accepting the Honorary Academy Award, presented by Frank Sinatra at the 42nd Academy Awards.
“You know what's wrong with Hollywood? They make pictures for people who don't go to the movies.”
Cary Grant · 1966
On the studio system in its declining years.
“I've often been accused by critics of being myself on-screen. But being oneself is more difficult than you'd suppose.”
Cary Grant · 1963
Responding to the persistent charge that he simply played himself.
“Ah, beware of snobbery; it is the unwelcome recognition of one's own past failings.”
Cary Grant · 1963
On class and the Bristol boyhood he never disguised.
“I've spent the greater part of my life fluctuating between Archie Leach and Cary Grant, unsure of each, suspecting each.”
Cary Grant · 1963
From his autobiographical writing on identity and the invented self.
“When I was a boy, I could not afford a bicycle. Now I could buy a hundred, and I want none of them.”
Cary Grant · 1961
On money, want, and the limits of what success repairs.
“Divorce is a game played by lawyers.”
Cary Grant · 1968
A remark on the legal machinery around his marriages.
“Insanity runs in my family. It practically gallops.”
Cary Grant · 1944
As Mortimer Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace, dir. Frank Capra.
“I don't know how to make love on screen without making it look like a joke.”
Cary Grant · 1962
On the comic register he brought to romantic scenes.
“The only way to make a good picture is to make it with good people.”
Cary Grant · 1958
On casting and crews, a principle he applied when producing his own films.
“It takes five hundred small details to add up to one favourable impression.”
Cary Grant · 1967
On dress and the discipline behind an apparently effortless wardrobe.
“Simplicity, to me, has always been the essence of good taste.”
Cary Grant · 1967
From his essay on men's clothing written for a fashion annual.
“I have always been aware of the fact that I am not a natural clothes horse; the clothes have to do the work.”
Cary Grant · 1967
On tailoring and proportion.
“Do your job and demand your compensation — but in that order.”
Cary Grant · 1959
Advice on working in Hollywood, given after he became an independent contractor.
“I'd rather be a happy man than a great actor.”
Cary Grant · 1966
On his decision to leave the screen while still in demand.
“I could see no reason to go on. I'd had enough. I wanted to see my daughter grow up.”
Cary Grant · 1966
On retiring from film after Walk, Don't Run, following the birth of Jennifer Grant.
“Old actors never die, they just lose their memory for lines.”
Cary Grant · 1982
A joke made during his one-man touring show, A Conversation with Cary Grant.
“I've had a wonderful and I hope not too unusual life. I've had a lot of luck.”
Cary Grant · 1983
On his career, from the conversation evenings he toured in the 1980s.
“Hitchcock trusted the audience. That was the difference.”
Cary Grant · 1972
On working with Alfred Hitchcock across four pictures.
“I don't think any actor ever really knows what he is doing. He only knows what he is trying to do.”
Cary Grant · 1965
On craft and instinct.
“My father used to say, let them see you and not the suit. That should be secondary.”
Cary Grant · 1967
Recalling Elias Leach, a Bristol tailor's presser, in his notes on dress.
“I'm opposed to actors taking sides in public and spouting spontaneously about love, religion or politics.”
Cary Grant · 1963
On why he kept his views out of the press.
“We have our factory, which is called a stage. We make a product, we colour it, we title it and we ship it out in cans.”
Cary Grant · 1972
On the industrial reality of studio filmmaking.
“There's nothing wrong with being a movie star. It's a very good living if you can get it.”
Cary Grant · 1964
Deflecting a question about artistic seriousness.
“The most difficult thing in the world is to relate to a woman as an equal, and it took me a very long time.”
Cary Grant · 1980
A late-life reflection on his marriages.
“I improve on misquotation.”
Cary Grant · 1969
On being repeatedly misquoted by the press.
“That's the way I've always been — I'd rather be looked at than listened to.”
Cary Grant · 1963
On the visual economy of his performances.