She said it to Alan Riding of The New York Times in an interview at her home in Switzerland, printed on 22 April 1991 — the day the Film Society of Lincoln Center honoured her career at Avery Fisher Hall. The line survives almost intact in circulation: the paper printed “I myself was born with an enormous need for affection and a terrible need to give it,” and the popular version simply drops the word “myself.”
“I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it” Audrey Hepburn, interviewed by Alan Riding, The New York Times, 22 April 1991. Verified at Quotle.info · Verbatim: “I myself was born with an enormous need for affection and a terrible need to give it.”
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In context
Evoking the world of Audrey Hepburn — Belgian-born actress and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. Theme: "I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
The documented source
Source
“25 Years Later, Honor for Audrey Hepburn”
Publication
The New York Times, 22 April 1991, Section C, Page 13
Reporter
Alan Riding
Setting
Interview in Switzerland, ahead of the Film Society of Lincoln Center tribute at Avery Fisher Hall
“I myself was born with an enormous need for affection and a terrible need to give it,” she went on. “That’s what I’d like to think maybe has been the appeal.”
abridged
Printed as direct speech, in answer to a question about why audiences felt such empathy for her. The passage continues; the circulating version of the line drops “myself” and adds a comma.
Alan Riding interviewed Hepburn in Switzerland for a piece published on 22 April 1991 ↗, the day the Film Society of Lincoln Center honoured her at Avery Fisher Hall.
Pressed on why audiences opened up to her, she answered that for her it always had to do with “some kind of affection, love, a warmth” — and then gave the line, printed as direct speech in Section C, Page 13 ↗.
Wikiquote ↗ carries the line in its sourced quotes and cites that same 1991 Times interview — not its Misattributed section.
Aggregator copies such as this Goodreads entry ↗ print the trimmed wording with no source at all, which is why the quote is often assumed to be one of the Hepburn fakes. It is not.
The words are Hepburn’s own, but the only documented publication of them is Alan Riding’s article in The New York Times of 22 April 1991 — far too recent to be public domain in the United States, so the article text remains under copyright. Quote the sentence briefly and cite the paper; do not reproduce the interview.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
The wording, and the company it keeps
This one holds up — which is not the way most sentences on an Audrey Hepburn quote page end. The only thing worth correcting is a missing word, and the only thing worth warning about is what sits next to it on aggregator pages.
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WordingThe circulating version trimmed
The Times printed her words as “I myself was born with an enormous need for affection and a terrible need to give it” — the version that travels drops “myself” and adds a comma. It is a trim, not a rewrite, but the fuller line is the one she actually spoke, per the article itself ↗.
✕
Not hers — someone else’sSam Levenson different author
The “Time Tested Beauty Tips” (“For attractive lips, speak words of kindness…”) sold on posters under Hepburn’s name were written by the humorist Sam Levenson in his 1973 book In One Era and Out the Other. Quote Investigator ↗ concludes the tips “were spoken by her, but she did not claim credit for them.”
✕
Not hers — nobody’sAn unidentified MySpace user fabricated
The “I believe in pink… I believe in miracles” passage is filed under Misattributed on Wikiquote ↗, which traces it to an unidentified MySpace member circa 2007–08 and notes no evidence of it during Hepburn’s lifetime.
✓The affection line is the real one, and it is datable to the day: she said it to Alan Riding in Switzerland, and The New York Times ran it on 22 April 1991, Section C, Page 13 ↗.
Context
Why she said it
The remark was not a piece of inspirational filler — it was Hepburn trying to explain her own appeal, reluctantly. Riding had pressed her on why audiences felt such empathy for her: was it the beauty, the vulnerability, the humour? She hedged first (“It’s impossible for me to know”), said that for her the thing always had to do with “some kind of affection, love, a warmth,” and only then offered the sentence that has outlived the interview.
She was 61, had lived in Switzerland since 1964, had given up her career in 1966 to be home when her children came back from school, and was by then working for UNICEF rather than for studios. The tribute she was being interviewed about frightened her: “absolutely marvelous, but it’s also absolutely terrifying,” she told the paper, adding that she had written her thanks down in case she blanked out.
That’s what I’d like to think maybe has been the appeal.
The childhood the interview keeps returning to
Riding notes that Hepburn kept circling back to her childhood to explain her approach to life. Born in Belgium to a Dutch mother and an English father, she spent her early years in England, then returned to the Netherlands after her parents separated and lived through the Nazi occupation: an uncle and a cousin of her mother’s were shot, a brother was sent to a labour camp in Germany, and by the end of the war the family in Arnhem, without water or electricity, was eating tulip bulbs to stay alive.
What kept her going, she said, was wanting to dance — “My dream was to wear a tutu and dance at Covent Garden.” Placed next to that, the sentence about needing affection reads less like a slogan and more like an account of where the need came from.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1929–1993 · Belgian-born actress and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador
Born in Ixelles, Brussels in 1929 and raised partly in the occupied Netherlands, Hepburn became one of the defining screen presences of the 1950s and ’60s in Roman Holiday, Sabrina, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and My Fair Lady. She stepped away from full-time acting in 1966 to raise her sons, and spent her final years as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF, travelling to famine and war zones on the fund’s behalf. She died at her home in Tolochenaz, Switzerland in January 1993, less than two years after giving the interview this line comes from.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Primary source
Alan Riding, “25 Years Later, Honor for Audrey Hepburn,” The New York Times, April 22, 1991, sec. C, p. 13.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I was born with an enormous need for affection, and a terrible need to give it’?” Last verified 18 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-was-born-with-an-enormous-need-for-affection-and-a/