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

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.

The minute we stop learning, we begin death, the process of dying. We learn from each other with every action we perform. We are teaching goodness or evil every time we step out of the house and into the street.

There's a bootleg album that was recorded when I was 14 or 15, a compilation of things live at different clubs. Songs like Girl from Ipanema and Cry Me A River. I don't know what the title of it is.

Communications devices were always used to effect change, to effect revolution. Telephone, telegraph - these all seemed like very big enhancements at the time.

I have known several presidents quite well, including my husband, and I worked closely with President George W. Bush and the White House then after 9/11, and I served with President Obama. I disagree with all three of those presidents on certain things.

Bora Bora is peaceful and quiet, but fun, so full of cool activities and more; spiritual to the core, and you leave with fully recharged batteries.

There is happiness in duty, although it may not seem so.

No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.

I think anyone that isn't fired up right now shouldn't probably be out here.

'Doctor Who' has a certain amount of showbiz attached to it.

The whole point of writing is to have something in your gut or in your soul or in your mind that's burning to be written.

Pretend to be dumb, that's the only way to reach old age.

Many of my friends are chefs, and I learnt to cook watching them.

We made music that wouldn't be in synch.

Divorce is like an amputation. Sometimes its necessary but it should be avoided if at all possible because it brings about a permanent disability.

When you are spiritually connected, you are not looking for occasions to be offended, and you are not judging and labeling others. You are in a state of grace in which you know you are connected to God and thus free from the effects of anyone or anything external to yourself.

If you're a wounded company, the other companies that have been around for a hundred years will smell it, and they will take advantage of you in a heartbeat. It takes a long time to get back in fighting form.

If you're in a bar and a certain song comes on and the vibe is just different, it evokes the kinds of things that you want to feel, and if music can do that it's a very special thing.

If I was going to write something, I'd need to stop for three months and just see if I had any thoughts in there.