Here is a test to find out whether your mission in life is complete. If you’re alive, it isn’t.

Imagination is the highest kite that one can fly.

When I was a kid, it was Bette Davis. She was my idol. I used to cut school and sit in the back of the theater; of course, I would have snuck in because I...

Stardom isn’t a profession; it’s an accident.

Stardom isn’t a profession, it’s an accident.

Young people, even in Hollywood, ask me, ‘Were you really married to Humphrey Bogart?’ ‘Well, yes, I think I was,’ I reply.

I’m not the public.

You are welcoming to everyone when you’re a liberal. You do not have a small mind.

All the Warner actors were real actors. They started in theater and led very straightforward lives – you never saw entourages around. The MGM girls were the glamour girls, and they always had the makeup...

Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.

You learn to rise above a lot of bad things that happen in your life. And you have to keep going.

I hope I’m thought of as not just a showbiz personality, but as someone who has lived a life and who has hopefully made a contribution to something along the way – someone who is...

I used to tremble from nerves so badly that the only way I could hold my head steady was to lower my chin practically to my chest and look up at Bogie. That was the...

I would hate now to be married. It does occur to me on occasion that, if I fall and hit my head, there will be no one to make the phone call. But who wants...

For my peculiar face, I look best when I look as though I’m not wearing make-up.

I’m a fan. My grandchildren are fans. I wish I’d written the books.

God – if the press ever quoted anyone correctly, it would be brilliant.

I called my business manager in California and said, ‘Sell all of my stock’ – what little of it I had – and it’s the only smart financial move I ever made.

Imagination is the highest kite that can fly.

When everything happens to you when you’re so young, you’re very lucky, but by the same token, you’re never going to have that same feeling again. The first time anything happens to you – your...

I suppose there are times when I can’t believe that I’ve lived the way that I have and done the things that I’ve done. Life’s a joke anyway. It’s all ridiculous. It’s all so short.

I have a built-in antenna.

Patience was not my strong point.

I happen to watch public television more than anything else. I’m also a news junkie, so I watch a lot of CNN.

Generally women are better than men — they have more character. I prefer men for some things, obviously, but women have a greater sense of honor and are more willing to take a chance with...

I always wanted to work with Spencer Tracy, which never happened, although I knew him well. And I never worked with Cary Grant.

I loved reading Grimm’s fairy tales and Hans Christian Andersen, and I loved to dream about other worlds and other lives. Maybe that has something to do with having an incomplete family, being an only...

I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that.

I don’t look in the mirror; don’t like what I see; never have. I am not my idea of a beauty. Never was. This is not false modesty. I’ve just never been enamoured of my...

The big rule is that you must never get mixed up with a married man – never even look sideways at another woman’s fella. Boy, I really was terrific at obeying that rule, wasn’t I?

I don’t sit around thinking that I’d like to have another husband; only another man would make me think that way.

I was always a little unsteady in my self-belief. Then there was the Jewish thing. I love being Jewish, I have no problem with it at all. But it did become like a scar, with...

I like to work with really good professional people – anyone with real talent.

You can’t start worrying about what’s going to happen. You get spastic enough worrying about what’s happening now.

Film is not a woman’s medium. If you weren’t the hottest kid in town, men stayed away from you.

I’m not tough, and I never have been. I suppose over the years I’ve built up kind of a veneer to protect myself because I have functioned on my own for a long, long time,...

When a woman reaches twenty-six in America, she’s on the slide. It’s downhill all the way from then on. It doesn’t give you a tremendous feeling of confidence and well-being.

I figure if I have my health, can pay the rent and I have my friends, I call it ‘content.’

I used to dream of being other places, other people. It was an escape for me.

A man’s illness is his private territory and, no matter how much he loves you and how close you are, you stay an outsider. You are healthy.

I finally felt that I came into my own when I went on the stage.

I love being Jewish; I have no problem with it at all. But it did become like a scar, with all these people saying you don’t look it.

In Hollywood, an equitable divorce settlement means each party getting fifty percent of publicity.

I don’t have an entourage. In fact, I have no live-in help.

Movies are great fun and wonderful when they’re good. But you never get to see them till six months after they’re finished. So you never get a sense of whether they’re really well liked or...

His whole behavior is so shocking,

I put my career in second place throughout both my marriages and it suffered. I don’t regret it. You make choices. If you want a good marriage, you must pay attention to that. If you...

If I could have lived as an actress in any period, it would have been the 1920s – I would have loved to have been part of that speakeasy era.

Looking at yourself in a mirror isn’t exactly a study of life.

I remember my oldest son, Steve, saying to me once, ‘I don’t ever remember seeing you with an apron on.’ And I thought, that’s right, honey, you did not. That was his concept of what...