"Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn't original sin. He's born with the tragedy that he has to grow up. That he has to leave the nest, the security, and go out to do battle. He has to lose everything that is lovely and fight for a new loveliness of his own making, and it's a tragedy. A lot of people don't have the courage to do it."

“Stardom can be a gilded slavery.”

“The old-fashioned idea that the simple piling up of experiences, one on top of another, can make you an artist, is, of course, so much rubbish. If acting were just a matter of experience, then any busy harlot could make Garbo’s Camille pale.”

“An actress always knows when she’s hit it and mostly you haven’t; but once or twice I think I hit it right, so maybe that’s good enough for one life.”

“Actors work and slave — and it is the color of your hair that can determine your fate in the end.”

“The worst constructed play is a Bach fugue when compared to life.”

“The truth that there is only one terminal dignity — love. And the story of love is not important — what is important is that one is capable of love. It is perhaps the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity.”