Everything in this country [the US] has got to be good looks and unlined faces and thin bodies and people running around in skirts slit up to their ass. It has nothing to do with thinking or with being a human being. There is life in mature people; it's not all over at 24½.

When a woman reaches twenty-six in America, she's on the slide. It's downhill all the way from then on. It doesn't give you a tremendous feeling of confidence and well-being.

We live in an age of mediocrity. Stars today are not the same stature as Bogie [Humphrey Bogart], James Cagney, Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda and Jimmy Stewart [James Stewart].

About working with Marilyn Monroe.We got along very well. My only complaint about her was that she was late all the time, but she was late out of fear as much as anything else, but it was hard to sit around and wait. She was usually an hour or two late every morning.

I am not a wealthy woman. I wish to hell I was, but I never had a wealthy man.

I remember my oldest son, Steve, saying to me once, 'I don't ever remember seeing you with an apron on.' And I thought, that's right, honey, you did not. That was his concept of what a mother should be.

Yes, I saw Twilight - my granddaughter made me watch it, she said it was the greatest vampire film ever. After the 'film' was over I wanted to smack her across her head with my shoe, but I do not want a (tell-all) book called Grannie Dearest written on me when I die. So instead I gave her a DVD of Murnau's 1922 masterpiece Nosferatu and told her, 'Now that's a vampire film!' And that goes for all of you! Watch Nosferatu instead!