“My mother always called me an ugly weed, so I never was aware of anything until I was older. Plain girls should have someone telling them they are beautiful. Sometimes this works miracles.”

I must quit marrying men who feel inferior to me. Somewhere there must be a man who could be my husband and not feel inferior.

Many people are target people. Once when Louis B. Mayer insulted me I poured a glass of water over his head.

I would tell anyone who wants something from someone else to feign not wanting it. People are perverse. If you show great affection to them, they’ll run the other way.

Analysis gave me great freedom of emotions and fantastic confidence. I felt I had served my time as a puppet.

I find very often that very ugly women have really handsome men and vice versa because they don’t have any competition. Sometimes handsome men have avoided me.

I advise everybody not to save: spend your money. Most people save all their lives and leave it to somebody else. Money is to be enjoyed.

I’d rather wear jewels in my hair than anywhere else. The face should have the advantage of this brilliance.

If you use your imagination, you can look at any actress and see her nude… I hope to make you use your imagination.

I’ve been an important star and lived a full life, yet I only have three close friends. I guess that’s all anyone can expect.

The ceremony took six minutes. The marriage lasted about the same amount of time though we didn’t get a divorce for almost a year.

All a woman needs is a good bath, clean clothes, and for her hair to be combed. These things she can do herself. I very seldom go to the hairdresser, but when I do, I just marvel.

I enjoy countless hundreds pursuing me. I love those who love me the most. I am sort of flattered by men showing attention to me.

A good painting to me has always been like a friend. It keeps me company, comforts and inspires.

Most children turn out badly because they have the wrong parental image. This doesn’t mean their parents are criminal. It means they are boring and cruel.

Making pictures, for an actress, is like betting, for a gambler. Each time you make a picture you try to analyze why you won or lost.

Confidence is something you’re born with. I know I had loads of it even at the age of 15.

When you start falling for somebody and you can’t stop thinking about when you’re going to see them again, I love that. Women are beautiful. They deserve to be cherished and respected.

She’s a beautiful wildness on fire.

She has a choice. She can either accept a life of misery or she can struggle against it. And she chooses to struggle…she fails in the end but there’s something beautiful and even heroic in her rebellion.

If you want to honor me, give some young boy or girl who’s coming along trying to create arts and write and compose and sing and act and paint and dance and make something out of the beauties of the Negro race-give that child some help.

Where youthful beauty is unconscious, mature beauty is knowing and sophisticated.

The audience’s reactions are more important: if people believe in the love story, it’s because they love how we’ve acted. That’s the most beautiful award. It’s very important for me, people appreciating what I do.

O innocence, how glorious and happy a portion art thou to the breast that possesses thee! thou fearest neither the eyes nor the tongues of men. Truth, the most powerful of all things, is thy strongest friend; and the brighter the light is in which thou art displayed, the more it discovers thy transcendent beauties.

I think life is perverse. It can be beautiful, but it won’t.