A career is wonderful, but you can’t curl up with it on a cold nigh.
A sex symbol becomes a thing. I hate being a thing.
All little girls should be told they are pretty, even if they aren’t.
An actress is not a machine, but they treat you like a machine. A money machine.
Before marriage, a girl has to make love to a man to hold him. After marriage, she has to hold him to make love to him.
Being a sex symbol is a heavy load to carry, especially when one is tired, hurt and bewildered.
Beneath the makeup and behind the smile I am just a girl who wishes for the world.
Diamonds are a girls best friend.
Dogs never bite me. Just humans.
Dreaming about being an actress, is more exciting then being one.
Fame will go by and, so long, I’ve had you, fame. If it goes by, I’ve always known it was fickle. So at least it’s something I experience, but that’s not where I live.
First, I’m trying to prove to myself that I’m a person. Then maybe I’ll convince myself that I’m an actress.
Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.
Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents.
Husbands are chiefly good as lovers when they are betraying their wives.
I am good, but not an angel. I do sin, but I am not the devil. I am just a small girl in a big world trying to find someone to love.
I am invariably late for appointments – sometimes as much as two hours. I’ve tried to change my ways but the things that make me late are too strong, and too pleasing.
I am involved in a freedom ride protesting the loss of the minority rights belonging to the few remaining earthbound stars. All we demanded was our right to twinkle.
I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they’re right, you believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself, and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.
I don’t know who invented high heels, but all women owe him a lot.
I don’t mind being burdened with being glamorous and sexual. Beauty and femininity are ageless and can’t be contrived, and glamour, although the manufacturers won’t like this, cannot be manufactured. Not real glamour; it’s based on femininity.
I don’t mind living in a man’s world, as long as I can be a woman in it.
I don’t mind making jokes, but I don’t want to look like one.
I don’t want to make money, I just want to be wonderful.
I guess I have always been deeply terrified to really be someone’s wife since I know from life one cannot love another, ever, really.
I have feelings too. I am still human. All I want is to be loved, for myself and for my talent.
I have too many fantasies to be a housewife. I guess I am a fantasy.
I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.
I learned to walk as a baby and I haven’t had a lesson since.
I love to do the things the censors won’t pass.
I restore myself when I’m alone.
I used to think as I looked out on the Hollywood night – there must be thousands of girls sitting alone like me, dreaming of becoming a movie star. But I’m not going to worry about them. I’m dreaming the hardest.
I want to grow old without facelifts. I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face I have made.
If I play a stupid girl and ask a stupid question, I’ve got to follow it through, what am I supposed to do, look intelligent?
If I’d observed all the rules, I’d never have got anywhere.
If I’m a star, then the people made me a star.
If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything.
I’m very definitely a woman and I enjoy it.
Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.
It’s all make believe, isn’t it?
It’s better to be unhappy alone than unhappy with someone – so far.
It’s not true I had nothing on, I had the radio on.
It’s often just enough to be with someone. I don’t need to touch them. Not even talk. A feeling passes between you both. You’re not alone.
I’ve been on a calendar, but I’ve never been on time.
I’ve never dropped anyone I believed in.
I’ve never fooled anyone. I’ve let people fool themselves. They didn’t bother to find out who and what I was. Instead they would invent a character for me. I wouldn’t argue with them. They were obviously loving somebody I wasn’t.
Keep smiling, because life is a beautiful thing and there’s so much to smile about.
Love and work are the only two real things in our lives. They belong together, otherwise it is off. Work is in itself a form of love.
Men are so willing to respect anything that bores them.
My work is the only ground I’ve ever had to stand on. I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation but I’m working on the foundation.
No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl. All little girls should be told they’re pretty, even if they aren’t.
Sex is a part of nature. I go along with nature.
She was a girl who knew how to be happy even when she was sad. And that’s important – you know.
Success makes so many people hate you. I wish it wasn’t that way. It would be wonderful to enjoy success without seeing envy in the eyes of those around you.
The body is meant to be seen, not all covered up.
The nicest thing for me is sleep, then at least I can dream.
The thing I want more than anything else? I want to have children. I used to feel for every child I had, I would adopt another.
The trouble with censors is that they worry if a girl has cleavage. They ought to worry if she hasn’t any.
There was my name up in lights. I said, ‘God, somebody’s made a mistake.’ But there it was, in lights. And I sat there and said, ‘Remember, you’re not a star.’ Yet there it was up in lights.
To put it bluntly, I seem to have a whole superstructure with no foundation. But I’m working on the foundation.
We are all born sexual creatures, thank God, but it’s a pity so many people despise and crush this natural gift.
We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle.
We should all start to live before we get too old. Fear is stupid. So are regrets.
What do I wear in bed? Why, Chanel No. 5, of course.
What is fame? The advantage of being known by people of whom you yourself know nothing, and for whom you care as little.
Who said nights were for sleep?
Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.
You never know what life is like, until you have lived it.
