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.

Life and death. They are somehow sweetly and beautifully mixed, but I don't know how.

There was no place at all for me in my father's military world.

My mother and I could always look out the same window without ever seeing the same thing.

I was 25 and the most popular celebrity in the world, with the possible exception of my friend Mary Pickford.

Hollywood's old trick: repeat a successful formula until it dies.

The first feminine feature that goes, with advancing age, is the neck.