Katharine Hepburn: Don't Go Within

Katharine Hepburn as The Lady in The Millionairess



Interview with Katharine Hepburn
Conducted by James Grissom
New York
1990


There's no waiting called for when it comes to our lives. We aren't meant to sit and wait and pray and hope and presume that life--like a cab or a sunny day--is going to present itself and take us somewhere or make us feel better about things. This is our job, and anyone can do it. You wake up in the morning and you announce that you're delighted to be alive and able to go about your business, and you tell yourself that you're lucky and you get to work. And things will come to you because you held out your hand, so to speak, by being awake and alive and ready to take advantage of all that is out there.

Look, the great work is done: The world has been created and is moving and throbbing with activity, and we just have to jump into it and add to it and improve it and wear ourselves out trying to make something of it. The world is not going to knock on your door and invite you out to play. The world is waiting for you to show up.

All this unhappiness! All this talk on the phone deep in the night with a genius [Marlon Brando] who wonders where the answers are! Madness! The answers are in the work and in the love of doing what we must. Don't go within. I'm really tired of people retiring inside of themselves. Get out and about and use what's already been given to us.



© 2016  James Grissom

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