It's tough when take 1 is technically okay and take 2 has better acting. Out here (Hollywood) they print the first one. That's the one where we all hit the mark on the floor and who cares about the acting.

I was bargaining for time away from Hollywood, and Columbia was bargaining for money. I got what I wanted and they got what they wanted. They knew I was so anxious to do Born Yesterday that I'd have done it for a dollar. They gave me the next best thing.

I'm a born and bred New Yorker. I belong here. Everytime I leave it's like losing a leg.

I am not a member of any organization listed by the Attorney General as subversive. In any instance where I lent my name in the past, it was certainly without knowledge that such an organization was subversive. I have always been essentially and foremost an American.

Lovers have a right to betray you... friends don't.

It meant as much to me as winning the Oscar.

He didn't maintain my illusion of myself, he gave me an illusion of myself. Before I met him, I never thought of myself as an actress. Boy, he sidetracked me in a great way!

I think Billie is the kind of girl who would let her hips swing loose.

If you can handle a nightclub audience successfully, you can handle anything.

I've always loved words. I ate up all the books I could get my hands on, and when I couldn't get books, I read candy wrappers and labels on cereal and toothpaste boxes.

Nobody can give a good performance unless the authors and composers have written a good part, a fact which is often overlooked.

Acting is a very limited form of expression and those who take it seriously are very limited people. I take it seriously.

I hated the whole idea of being an actress. I used to throw up before every performance and cry afterward.

When they thought of me, they always remembered the vacuous Billie Dawn. It was as simple as that.

They weren't interested in entertainment. They were tough. I learned one trick, which was to be quieter than they were until they had to look at you. It took a lot of agressiveness.

I want a part where I can use my own hair, my own voice, and maybe even be literate.

You have to be smart to play a dumb blonde over and over again and keep the audience's attention without extraordinary physical equipment.

Of course I work hard. Why shouldn't I? Who am I to think I should get things the easy way?

People have a hard time making me dress up to look like a classy gal.

I'm trying to eliminate every vestige of my own personality, style, approach and get into somebody else's skin. Sometimes I feel I've accomplished it. But when I don't, I'm nobody at all, having left myself at home.

We were wavering around like a ship without a sail.

The only actress they didn't test was Garbo. Must have been her accent.

I get very nervous whenever I think about it. I've never done a serious play, and I have such awe of the woman - she's really my only idol. It's going to be a big stretch - certain people come out on stage and your face muscles automatically tense and you get ready to smile.

I could talk about him all day. He's one of the most wonderful things that ever happened to me.

Now with all this movie business, everybody's coming around wanting to know everything that's happened since I was four. It's like going to an analyst.

It's tough when take 1 is technically okay and take 2 has better acting. Out here (Hollywood) they print the first one. That's the one where we all hit the mark on the floor and who cares about the acting.

I am not an 'instant' actor... to really do anything, I've got to try it five or six or a dozen times.

I suppose that if I could have quit, I would have, because in those days I never wanted to be an actress, the acting was something to do while I waited for a chance to study writing and directing. But I guess I was just meant to be an actress. Because, here I am.

We gained a great deal of prestige, but not much money. We liked to work so much we couldn't hide it and the club owners paid us accordingly.

I thought I was learning about show business. The more painful it was, the more important I thought the experience must be. Hating it, I convinced myself it must be invaluable.

Lovers have a right to betray you friends don't.

It was always part of the plan to move into acting.

Be where the acting is. I live in Houston. Dallas is 4 1/2 hours away. I let them know there's no difference.

My mother keeps things in perspective for me. She makes me realize that the acting I do and love is no more important than what one of my brothers does-he works in a shoe repair shop. If my career ever tapers off, I'll go to college.

In Hungary, acting is a career for which one fits himself as earnestly as one studies for a degree in medicine, law, or philosophy.

I think acting is about forgetting yourself in order to give the best of yourself. It's passing through you more than you're creating it. You're not the flower, but the vase which holds the flower.

In LA, too many people want to go the quickest route from A to B. Method acting offers them that.

I don't see it as a form of healing, because if you have wounds that are bleeding I don't think acting will ever get them to stop. But I find acting is a form of illumination.

Maybe I can't act, but I know the gimmicks. I studied acting all my life and know what's good for me.

I know that if I'd had to go and take an exam for acting, I wouldn't have got anywhere. You don't take exams for acting, you take your courage.

I'm not acting, but I am acting.

I've done a lot of acting. I'm not saying I'm the greatest, but I'd love to act, I'd love to sing.

I had a bonding problem when I went off and boxed for five years. I was over in Europe and Asia fighting because I wanted to do something different; I was tired of acting. But the thing is, when I was done doing that, I couldn't get a job.

Acting for me is not that quid pro quo.

If you're acting, then there's a prescribed way to behave; whereas in life there's no prescribed way. So acting feels like a comfortable way to get through the day.

When I was a kid, the idea of why I wanted acting to be the thing I do for the rest of my life was different. It was, Oh yeah, I'll get girls and be famous.

And then, I suppose, there's also a cinematic reality on top of that. Because it was extremely difficult to keep tabs on, it was quite confusing acting that.

I read. It's also nice for me to get involved in schoolwork, which is a totally different world than acting. It makes me feel like I am doing things that normal people are doing at my age.

It's a living, breathing thing, acting.