Montgomery Clift Quotes

United States, Actor
October 17, 1920 – July, 23, 1966.

Edward Montgomery "Monty" Clift was an American actor. His New York Times obituary noted his portrayal of "moody, sensitive young men". He is best remembered for roles in Red River (1948), The Heiress (1949), A Place in the Sun (1951), Alfred Hitchcock's I Confess (1953), From Here to Eternity (1953), The Young Lions (1958), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), and The Misfits (1961). He received four Oscar nominations during his career: three for Best Actor and one for Best Supporting Actor.

Nobody ever lies about being lonely.

Montgomery Clift
- Lying
- Lonely
- Eternity
James Dean's death had a profound effect on me. The instant I heard about it, I vomited. I don't know why.

Montgomery Clift
- Profound
- Heard
- Effects

Look! Look! If you look really hard at things you'll forget you're going to die.

Montgomery Clift
- Forget
- Hard
- Dies
A man should be what he can do.

Montgomery Clift
- Should Be
I have enough money to get by. I'm not independently wealthy, just independently lazy, I suppose.

Montgomery Clift
- Enough
- Lazy
- Suppose
If a man don't go his own way, he is nothing.

Montgomery Clift
- Way
- Eternity
I don't want to be labeled as either a pansy or a heterosexual. Labeling is so self-limiting. We are what we do - not what we say we are.

Montgomery Clift
- Want
- Pansies
- Labeling
I keep my family out of my public life because it can be an awful nuisance to them. What's my mother going to tell strangers anyway? That I was a cute baby and that she's terribly proud of me? Nuts. Who cares?

Montgomery Clift
- Family
- Proud
- Stranger

Noah, from 'The Young Lions' (1958), was the best performance of my life. I couldn't have given more of myself. I'll never be able to do it again. Never.

Montgomery Clift
- Best
- Young
- Given
Look, I'm not odd. I'm just trying to be an actor; not a movie star, an actor.

Montgomery Clift
- Trying
- Movie
- Actors
Look, if you're playing Romeo and your Juliet is a pig, you find something you can love about pigs!

Montgomery Clift
- Looks
- Pigs
- Juliet
The thing that bugs me is the average woman's complete ignorance of the functional purpose of cosmetics, which is to supplement, not conceal.

Montgomery Clift
The sadness of our existence should not leave us blunted, on the contrary--how to remain thin-skinned, vulnerable and stay alive?

Montgomery Clift
Failure and its accompanying misery is for the artist his most vital source of creative energy.

Montgomery Clift
- Energy
- Failure
- Creative

The only line that's wrong in Shakespeare is 'holding a mirror up to nature.' You hold a magnifying glass up to nature. As an actor you just enlarge it enough so that your audience can identify with the situation. If it were a mirror, we would have no art.

Montgomery Clift
I have the same problem as Marilyn. We attract people the way honey does bees, but they're generally the wrong kind of people. People who want something from us - if only our energy. We need a period of being alone to become ourselves.

Montgomery Clift
- People
- Problem
- Something
The closer we come to the negative, to death, the more we blossom.

Montgomery Clift
- Death
- Negative
- Blossom