Katharine Hepburn on Happiness

Interview with Katharine Hepburn

Conducted by James Grissom

NYC

1990

I don't wake up in the morning hoping to be happy. I wake up in the morning hoping to be useful, to let the world, the earth, know that I'm here and I'm giving to it what I can. Happiness, you know, is like becoming famous or becoming rich: It might be what you were hoping for, but it's like giving birth to a unicorn. At first you marvel at the thing, but then it's terribly, terribly hard to train it or feed it or keep it under control, and then you want to find a new home for it. Some things happen to show up, but I always show up, and that makes me happy.

© 2016 James Grissom