“We movie stars all end up by ourselves. Who knows? Maybe we want to.”

I firmly believe, however, that if your children have never hated you, you have failed as a parent.

I wouldn’t piss on Joan Crawford if she were on fire.

Acting should be bigger than life. Scripts should be bigger than life. It should all be bigger than life.

Life is the past, the present and the perhaps.

There comes a time in every woman’s life when the only thing that helps is a glass of champagne.

I will never be below the title.

Yes, burn your bridges.

Gay Liberation? I ain’t against it, it’s just that there’s nothing in it for me.

I often think that a slightly exposed shoulder emerging from a long satin nightgown packs more sex than two naked bodies in bed.

Being called very, very difficult is the beginning of success. Until you’re called very, very difficult you’re really nobody at all.

You should know me well enough by now to know I don’t ask for things I don’t think I can get.

I never did pal around with actresses. Their talk usually bored me to tears.

Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.

Without wonder and insight, acting is just a trade. With it, it becomes creation.

I am doomed to an eternity of compulsive work. No set goal achieved satisfies. Success only breeds a new goal. The golden apple devoured has seeds. It is endless.

Almost as many inhumanities are committed in the name of love as in the name of religion.

I think I ended up being the scarlet woman partly because of my rather puritannical upbringing and beliefs. I always chose to think I was in love and that love was synonymous with marriage.

The endings won’t end you.

I don’t have to play the song all the way to the very end – I use it while it’s good and while it’s cool and while it’s exciting, and then I get out.

Ghosting is an expression of extreme anxiety and fear of intimacy. As much as it hurts to be on the receiving end, please know it was never about you.

The truth is the kindest thing we can give folks in the end.

Perhaps one day, all these conflicts will end, and it won’t be because of great statesmen or churches or organisations like this one. It’ll be because people have changed. They’ll be like you, Puffin. More a mixture. So why not become a mongrel? It’s healthy.

We are the opening verse of the opening page of the chapter of endless possibilities.

An opera begins long before the curtain goes up and ends long after it has come down. It starts in my imagination, it becomes my life, and it stays part of my life long after I’ve left the opera house.