Raquel Welch

I have a very, very good life. I'm grateful for all of my friends, my family and the life that I have, and the possibilities in my future.

It seemed like a wonderful honor to have the Film Society of Lincoln Center screen 'The Films of Raquel Welch.' It shows a lot of a variety in what they've chosen; it kind of runs the gamut of my film career.

When I first came along in the business, they didn't really like the idea of my name being Raquel.

Myra Breckenridge is the antithesis of sex symbol. She's revolutionary; she's a warrior.

We try to do too many things that used to be in the men's domain, and we try to do them like men's. I'm a prude - I guess you can tell that - but I think, 'Why would you do that?'

I am 5 ft 6 in, and at my peak, my vital statistics were 37-22-35. I didn't even think about my weight - but now I work hard at keeping healthy. Fortunately, my husband Richie is as much of a fitness buff as I am.

I couldn't stand that my husband was being unfaithful. I am Raquel Welch - understand?

Theres a duality in every man and every woman.

Once you get rid of the idea that you must please other people before you please yourself, and you begin to follow your own instincts - only then can you be successful. You become more satisfied, and when you are, other people will tend to be satisfied by what you do.

Being a sex symbol was rather like being a convict.

My father was Bolivian, which makes me half-Bolivian. It's where I got some of my exotic features and certainly my skin tone.

I'd taken the bull by the horns by liberating myself and creating a career. It took guts - it was scary and chancy - but they discounted me as empty-headed: some little piece of fluff without any brain that happened to come along.

I was asked to come to Chicago because Chicago is one of our fifty-two states.

Latinos are here to stay. As citizen Raquel, I'm proud to be Latina.

I'm not imperceptible to masculine charm, but, well, you know, I can flirt.

Not everybody is comfortable with my ethnicity. When I first came along in the business, they didn't really like the idea of my name being Raquel.

The mind can also be an erogenous zone.

Oh I had crushes on all my leading men, I think. Oh, you know who I really had fun with? In this movie 'Mother, Jugs & Speed,' I really liked working with Harvey Keitel.

'My self-esteem,' 'my self-this,' 'my self-that.' Believe me, I've been there - I'm an actress. At one point, you just get nauseous with it and think, 'I have to take my mind off myself!'

There's a duality in every man and every woman.

In school, nobody could pronounce my name. They just called me Rocky.

I was a bigger-than-life persona before I was anyone in my own mind.

I was lucky that one of my first movies, 'One Million Years B.C.' was made in Europe by a British company. The Brits, and a lot of the rest of Europe, seemed to really love exotic women. The fact that I was American and exotic just made me more appealing to them.

Once you get rid of the idea that you must please other people before you please yourself, and you begin to follow your own instincts only then can you be successful. You become more satisfied, and when you are other people tend to be satisfied by what you do.

We all have a childhood dream that when there is love, everything goes like silk, but the reality is that marriage requires a lot of compromise.

I was not a classic mother. But my kids were never palmed off to boarding school. So, I didn't bake cookies. You can buy cookies, but you can't buy love.

I'm the antidote to Lindsay Lohan. I know she misbehaves terribly, but sometimes it just seems like it's open season on her.

You can't fake listening. It shows.