I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man. I've just done what I damn well wanted to, and I've made enough money to support myself, and ain't afraid of being alone.

Hepburn frames her independence in the blunt, gendered terms available in her era: to “live as a man” means claiming freedoms—sexual, professional, financial, and social—more readily granted to men than to women. The quote rejects prescribed femininity (deference, domestic dependence, fear of solitude) and substitutes self-determination: doing what one wants, earning one’s own living, and refusing to treat partnership as a necessity. Its force lies in the unapologetic tone (“damn well”), which turns what might be read as transgression into a statement of principle. It also reflects Hepburn’s public persona—forthright, self-possessed, and resistant to Hollywood’s expectations of female stars.