Quotes

A woman, a dog and a walnut tree, the more you beat them, the better they be.

Acting is like roller-skating. Once you know how to do it, it is neither stimulating nor exciting.

I am not one of those people who would rather act than eat. Quite the reverse. My own desire as a boy was to retire. That ambition has never changed.

I don't ask questions. I just take their money and use it for things that really interest me.

I was beastly but never coarse. A high-class sort of heel.

I never really thought I'd make the grade. And let's face it, I haven't.

The important thing for a star is to have an interesting face. He doesn't have to move it very much. Editing and camerawork can always produce the desired illusion that a performance is being given.

Where on the screen I am invariably a son-of-a-bitch, in life I am a dear, dear boy.

[on being asked how he felt about his divorce from Zsa Zsa Gabor] Like a squeezed lemon.

[to Rex Reed's observation, "I understand you were a great fan of Tyrone Power"] Who told you that? He died on the set of Solomon and Sheba (1959). But he was just someone I knew. One knew lots of people. Every film is like an ocean voyage, a transatlantic crossing. You swear you will meet each other again. But you never do.

On July 3, 1906, the world was at peace. Nothing of any consequence seemed to be happening in the capital cities of any of its countries. Nothing disturbed the summer lethargy of its population. Everywhere, people dozed contentedly, unaware that an event of major importance was taking place in St. Petersburg, Russia. At Number 6, Petroffski Ostroff, to Margaret and Henry Sanders, a son of dazzling beauty and infinite charm was being born. It was I.

[on Samson and Delilah (1949)] I had a wonderful director in Cecil B. DeMille, and Victor Mature and Hedy Lamarr were easy to work with.

It gives me no particular satisfaction to think that actors even more mediocre than I are hailed as great artists; it merely proves what lamentable taste most people have.

[on choosing not to show up for a scheduled luncheon with studio head Louis B. Mayer] Perhaps I did make a mistake in not accepting Mayer's invitation, but ... had I become a big-time romantic star I might now be a good deal richer than I am; on the other hand it is quite conceivable I would no longer be around, professionally speaking; the mortality rate among stars is extremely high, whereas a good character actor is almost indestructible.

On the screen I am usually suave and cynical, cruel to women and immune to their slights and caprices. This is my mask, and it has served me faithfully ... but in reality I am a sentimentalist, readily moved to tears by cheap emotions and invariably the victim of woman's inhumanity to man.

[on finally assenting to wife Zsa Zsa's entreaties to switch to her analyst] Zsa Zsa's taste in psychiatrists, as in other spheres, turned out to be exemplary. He was one of the best. In due course he not only cured me of my obsessional impulses ... he also cured me of Zsa Zsa.