If you have to be in a soap opera try not to get the worst role.
From the time I was thirteen, there was a constant struggle between MGM and me – whether or not to eat, how much to eat, what to eat. I remember this more vividly than anything else about my childhood. I’m a woman who wants to reach out and take 40 million people in her arms.
My mother had a marvelous talent for mishandling money mine. My mother had a marvelous talent for mishandling money – mine.
I try to bring the audience’s own drama – tears and laughter they know – to them.
Hollywood is a strange place if you’re in trouble. Everybody thinks it’s contagious.
There have been a lot of stories written about me, some of them fantastically distorted.
For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.
How strange when an illusion dies. It’s as though you’ve lost a child.
Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.
In the silence of night I have often wished for just a few words of love from one man, rather than the applause of thousands of people.
In our house, the word of Louis B. Mayer became the law.
I think there’s something peculiar about me that I haven’t died. It doesn’t make sense but I refuse to die.
Behind every cloud is another cloud meaning there is no limit to success and opportunities.
There have been times when I have deliberately tried to take my life… I think I must have been crying for some attention.
I’m a woman who wants to reach out and take 40 million people in her arms.
My father’s death was the most terrible thing that happened to me in my life.
I’ve seen the ticket, and I still can’t believe it. When I see the money, I hope I don’t hit the floor.
I think that I have every right to write a book. I think I’m interesting. I have perspective about me.
It’s lonely and cold on the top… lonely and cold.
You are never so alone as when you are ill on stage. The most nightmarish feeling in the world is suddenly to feel like throwing up in front of four thousand people.
I can live without money, but I cannot live without love.
I’ve never looked through a keyhole without finding someone was looking back.
We cast away priceless time in dreams, born of imagination, fed upon illusion, and put to death by reality.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could all be a little more gentle with each other, and a little more loving, have a little more empathy, and maybe we’d like each other a little bit more.
I’ve always taken ‘The Wizard of Oz’ very seriously, you know. I believe in the idea of the rainbow. And I’ve spent my entire life trying to get over it.
Every time the camera rolls, I think to myself Maybe this is the time they’re going to catch me.
He gave me a look at myself I’ve never had before. He saw something in me nobody else ever did. He made me see it too. He made me believe it.
My life, my career has been like a roller coaster. I’ve either been an enormous success or just a down-and-out failure.
You know something? I’m decent! There isn’t a great deal of decency in the world, especially in our business, and I’m one of the few really decent ladies around.
A really great reception makes me feel like I have a great big warm heating pad all over me. People en masse have always been wonderful to me. I truly have a great love for an audience, and I used to want to prove it to them by giving them blood.
I’ve seen the ticket, and I still can’t believe it. When I see the money, I hope I don’t hit the floor.
I’m always being painted a more tragic figure than I am, I get awfully bored with myself as a tragic figure.
As for my feelings toward ‘Over the Rainbow,’ it’s become part of my life. It is so symbolic of all my dreams and wishes that I’m sure that’s why people sometimes get tears in their eyes when they hear it.
For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.
Everybody has their troubles and I’ve had mine.
