I used to wash my hands every ten minutes. I couldn't step out of the house unless I had gloves on. I wouldn't smoke a cigarette unless I opened the pack myself, and I would never use another cigarette out of that pack if someone else had touched it.

[To the mother of two unruly children in a restaurant after the woman said she really didn't know what to do with her children:] Have you tried infanticide?

I was a strict disciplinarian, perhaps too strict at times, but my God, without discipline what is life?

I'd like to think every director I've worked with has fallen in love with me, I know Dorothy Arzner did.

There was a saying around MGM: "Norma Shearer got the productions, Greta Garbo supplied the art, and Joan Crawford made the money to pay for both".

You have to be self-reliant and strong to survive in this town. Otherwise you will be destroyed.

While making "Possessed", I wept each morning on my drive to the studio, and I wept all the way back home. I found it impossible to sleep at night, so I'd lie in bed contemplating the future. I fear it with all my heart and soul even as I fear the dark.