They used to photograph Shirley Temple through gauze. They should photograph me through linoleum.

It’s one of the tragic ironies of the theatre that only one man in it can count on steady work – the night watchman.

Nobody can be exactly me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it.

I did what I could to inflate the rumor I was on my way to stardom. What I was on my way to, by any mathematical standards known to man, was oblivion, by way of obscurity.

They used to photograph Shirley Temple through gauze. They should photograph me through linoleum.

Acting is a form of confusion.

Here’s a rule I recommend: Never practice two vices at once.

I read Shakespeare and the Bible, and I can shoot dice. That’s what I call a liberal education.

My heart is as pure as the driven slush.

I have three phobias which, could I mute them, would make my life as slick as a sonnet, but as dull as ditch water: I hate to go to bed, I hate to get up, and I hate to be alone.

There is less in this than meets the eye.

I’m as pure as the driven slush.

The less I behave like Whistler’s mother the night before, the more I look like her the morning after.

Only good girls keep diaries. Bad girls don’t have time.

Acting is a form of confession.

It’s the good girls who keep diaries; the bad girls never have the time.

I’d rather be strongly wrong than weakly right.

I have been absolutely hag-ridden with ambition. If I could wish to have anything in the world it would be to be free of ambition.

I’ve been called many things, but never an intellectual.

If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.

The only thing I regret about my past is the length of it. If I had to live my life again I’d make all the same mistakes – only sooner.

Television could perform a great service in mass education, but there’s no indication its sponsors have anything like this on their minds.

Nobody can be exactly like me. Even I have trouble doing it.

(On seeing a former lover for the first time in years) I thought I told you to wait in the car.

I’ll come and make love to you at five o’clock. If I’m late start without me.

If you really want to help the American theater, don’t be an actress, dahling. Be an audience.