I can do everything with ease on the stage, whereas in real life I feel too big and clumsy. So I didn't choose acting. It chose me.

I don't think anyone has the right to intrude in your life, but they do. I would like people to separate the actress and the woman.

I was the shyest human ever invented, but I had a lion inside me that wouldn't shut up.

my life has been wonderful. I have done what I felt like. I was given courage and I was given adventure and that has carried me along. And then also a sense of humor and a little bit of common sense. It has been a very rich life.

On acting to daughter Isabella Rossellini: Keep it simple. Make a blank face and the music and the story will fill it in.

Be yourself. The world worships the original.

I have no regrets. I wouldn't have lived my life the way I did if I was going to worry about what people were going to say.