I always anticipated difficulties in order to avoid scenes.

In a theater you can fool everyone past the tenth row if you're good, but on the screen you can't really fool anyone for a second.

I think all this talk about age is foolish. Every time I'm one year older, everyone else is too.

It's amazing to find that so many people, who I thought really knew me, could have thought that 'Sunset Boulevard' was autobiographical. I've got nobody floating in my swimming pool.

I've given my memoirs far more thought than any of my marriages. You can't divorce a book.

So they were turning, after all - those cameras. Life, which can be strangely merciful, had taken pity on Norma Desmond. The dream she had clung to so desperately had enfolded her. Norma: You see, this is my life. It always will be! (In a whisper) There's nothing else - just us - and the cameras - and those wonderful people out there in the dark. All right, Mr. De Mille, I'm ready for my close-up.

All creative people should be required to leave California for three months every year.