Aging & Wisdom Quote by Kitty Carlisle

Kitty Carlisle’s line has the breezy candor of someone who’s seen the sausage get made and is no longer impressed by the casing. “Scooping up” is the tell: it frames the entertainment industry as less a meritocracy than a net thrown quickly over whatever sparkles. Talent matters, sure, but it’s fused to “look decent” with the almost-comedic shrug of “ah, at the same time” - a pause that doubles as a wink. She’s not making a grand moral argument; she’s recalling a system whose priorities were obvious enough to be recited like weather.

The intent feels partly amused, partly corrective. Carlisle, a performer who moved through Broadway, film, and television, is puncturing the romance of discovery. The subtext is that “young” is the most valuable credential in the room, and “decent” is deliberately vague - not “beautiful,” not “glamorous,” but acceptable, camera-ready, sellable. That softness is strategic: it nods to the era’s codes (studio-era polish, tightly managed images, unspoken standards around whiteness, femininity, and respectability) without turning the memory into a courtroom testimony.

What makes the quote work is its conversational compression. It captures a whole hiring logic - speed, surface, and the hunger for the next marketable face - while sounding like gossip over a dressing-room mirror. The cynicism lands lightly, which is precisely why it stings: Carlisle makes exploitation and opportunism sound routine, because for a long time, they were.