[On her troubled relationships with her daughters:] You can acquire enemies. Why give birth to them?

- Joan Fontaine

It seems there's just no room left for elegance in this paper-plate, blue-jean world. And I, for one, think it's a shame.

- Joan Fontaine

I married first, won the Oscar before Olivia (sister Olivia de Havilland) did, and if I die first, she'll undoubtedly be livid because I beat her to …

- Joan Fontaine

One puzzling thing about men -- they allow their sex instinct to drive them to where their intelligence never would take them.

- Joan Fontaine

I hope I'll die on stage at the age at 105, playing Peter Pan.

- Joan Fontaine

Marriage, as an institution, is as dead as the dodo bird.

- Joan Fontaine

My sister is a very peculiar lady. When we were young, I wasn't allowed to talk to her friends. Now I'm not allowed to talk to her children, nor are …

- Joan Fontaine

If you keep marrying as I do, you learn everybody's hobby.

- Joan Fontaine

The theater audience is the ultimate teacher, instructing the actor on the degree to which he has executed both the author's and the director's inten…

- Joan Fontaine