French actress (1844-1923)
Those who know the joys and miseries of celebrity when they have passed the age of forty know how to defend themselves. They are at the beginning of a series of small worries, thunderbolts hidden under flowers, but they know how to hold in check that monster advertisement. It is a sort of octopus with innumerable tentacles. It throws out to right and left, in front and behind, its clammy arms, and gathers in, through its thousand little suckers, all the gossip and slander and praise afloat, to spit out again at the public when it is vomiting its black gall. But those who are caught in the clutches of celebrity at the age of twenty two know nothing.
SARAH BERNHARDT
My Double Life
I am so superstitious that if I had arrived when there was no sunshine I should have been wretched and most anxious until after my first performance. It is a perfect torture to be superstitious to this degree, and, unfortunately for me, I am ten times more so now than I was in those days, for besides the superstitions of my own country, I have, thanks to my travels, added to my stock all the superstitions of other countries. I know them all now, and in any critical moment of my life, they all rise up in armed legions for or against me. I cannot walk a single step or make any movement or gesture, sit down, go out, look at the sky or ground, without feeling some reason for hope or despair, until at last, exasperated by the trammels put upon my actions by my thought, I defy all superstitions and just act as I want to act.
SARAH BERNHARDT
My Double Life
So my illnesses create a disturbance? They attack me without warning and leave me insensible wherever I may be. I cannot be expected, before feeling ill, to ask people who happen to be there to leave the room.
SARAH BERNHARDT
The Fabulous Life of Sarah Bernhardt
Victor Hugo could not promise without keeping his word. He was not like me: I promise everything with the firm intention of keeping my promises, and two hours after I have forgotten all about them. If any one reminds me of what I have promised, I tear my hair, and to make up for my forgetfulness I say anything, I buy presents -- in fact, I complicate my life with useless worries. It has always been thus, and always will be so.
SARAH BERNHARDT
My Double Life
I know very well that the theatre is Sodom and Gomorrah in one.
SARAH BERNHARDT
The Idol of Paris
What would life be without art? Science prolongs life. To consist of what--eating, drinking, and sleeping? What is the good of living longer if it is only a matter of satisfying the requirements that sustain life? All this is nothing without the charm of art.
SARAH BERNHARDT
The Art of the Theatre
I have often been asked why I am so fond of playing male parts.... As a matter of fact, it is not male parts, but male brains that I prefer.
SARAH BERNHARDT
The Art of the Theatre
I often go away just for the pure joy of coming back to my wonderful Paris.
SARAH BERNHARDT
"Bernhardt Triumphs in New Role", Theatre Magazine, 1920
He who is incapable of feeling strong passions, of being shaken by anger, of living in every sense of the word, will never be a good actor.
SARAH BERNHARDT
The Art of the Theatre