If I can't be me, I don't want to be anybody. I was born that way.

Of all the actresses ... to me, only Faye Dunaway has the talent and the class and the courage it takes to make a real star.

I had read the criticisms of me and my movies and they were discerning. They said that Crawford needs a new deal, and they asked if I was doomed to explore forever the emotional misfortunes of the super-sexed modern young woman. And so, to break away from the pattern, I wanted to do "The Gorgeous Hussy". Selznick laughed at me. 'You can't do a costume picture. You're too modern.' But I begged and begged and begged, and so they let me do it. I was totally miscast.

You know the troubles I've had with my two older children. I can't understand why it turned out so badly. I tried to give them everything. I loved them and tried to keep them near me, even when they didn't return my love. Well, I couldn't make them love me, but they could have shown some respect. I couldn't insist on love, but I could insist on respect.

If you throw a lamb chop in the oven, what's to keep it from getting done?

[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?

Well, we can skip childhood because I didn't have any. Not one goddam moment on the Good Ship Lollipop.