All I ever got out of any of my marriages was the two years Artie Shaw financed on an analyst's couch.

I have only one rule in acting--trust the director and give him heart and soul.

When I lose my temper, honey, you can't find it any place.

I don't understand people who like to work and talk about it like it was some sort of goddamn duty. Doing nothing feels like floating on warm water to me. Delightful, perfect.

I must have seen more sunrises than any other actress in the history of Hollywood.

I haven't taken an overdose of sleeping pills and called my agent. I haven't been in jail, and I don't go running to the psychiatrist every two minutes. That's something of an accomplishment these days.

Nobody ever called it an intellectual profession.

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

After my screen test, the director clapped his hands gleefully and yelled, "She can't talk! She can't act! She's sensational!"

Everybody kisses everybody else in this crummy business all the time. It's the kissiest business in the world.

What's the point? My face, shall we say, looks lived in.

I made it as a star dressed, and if it ain't dressed, I don't want it.

I wish to live until 150 years old but the day I die, I wish it to be with a cigarette in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other.

[in 1985, on why she came out of retirement to appear on a prime-time soap opera] For the loot, honey, for the loot.

What I'd really like to say about stardom is that it gave me everything I never wanted.

Maybe I just didn't have the temperament for stardom. I'll never forget seeing Bette Davis at the Hilton in Madrid. I went up to her and said, "Miss Davis, I'm Ava Gardner and I'm a great fan of yours." And do you know, she behaved exactly as I wanted her to behave. "Of course you are, my dear," she said. "Of course you are." And she swept on. Now that's a star.

Although no one believes me, I have always been a country girl and still have a country girl's values.

[on Robert Taylor] I knew him as a warm, generous, intelligent human being. Our love affair lasted three, maybe four months. A magical little interlude. I've never forgotten those few hidden months. I think Bob, despite all his efforts, couldn't break the mold of the beautiful lover. The film world remembers him that way, and I have to say that I do, too.

I can't bear to face a camera. But I never brought anything to this business and I have no respect for acting. Maybe if I had learned something it would be different. But I never did anything to be proud of.

[asked if her time at MGM had been any fun at all] Christ, after 17 years of slavery, you can ask that question? I hated it, honey. I mean, I'm not exactly stupid or without feeling, and they tried to sell me like a prize hog.

[on her career] Christ, what did I ever do worth talking about? Every time I tried to act, they stepped on me. That's why it's such a goddamn shame, I've been a movie star for 25 years and I've got nothing, nothing, to show for it.

I really had very little to contribute, so I played a lot of hatcheck girls, and did mob scenes, extra scenes, dancing scenes, just to have the experience of being on a set. I spent years at that. If the studio wanted a photograph to advertise a film they'd say, 'Who is it that has a good pair of legs and a good pair of breasts and is pretty and not working?' And it was always Ava because she was never working.

[on her first screen test] There wasn't a thing that I could do. I couldn't act--I was the first to be eliminated in high school plays. I had no training whatsoever. I was just a pretty little girl. But I loved the idea, because I loved movies.

God knows I've got so many frailties myself, I ought to be able to understand and forgive them in others. But I don't.

[on her role in The Bible in the Beginning... (1966)] I've never thought of myself as right for this type of part. But John [John Huston] said he had faith that I could do it. Now I am glad I listened to him. Sarah is a wonderful role. She is a selfless woman who gives her maid servant Hagar to her husband when she herself cannot give Abraham a son. Later she is blessed by God and gives birth to a son, at 90. This is one of the most beautiful love stories in the Bible.

[on why she had an abortion during her marriage to Frank Sinatra] We couldn't even take care of ourselves. How were we going to take care of a baby?

[on mementos] I don't like all that stuff hanging around. I don't have to be reminded every day.

It's fine being stared at as a pretty girl, but not as a freak. When I tried to make myself ugly, they said, "Oh, she's lost her looks." They weren't thinking of me as an actress. I wasn't allowed to be unattractive.

[on her three failed marriages] There was no way the marriages could have survived. Nor do I regret that they didn't.

[1982] I was born with good health and a strong body and spent years abusing them. Now I spend a lot of time taking care. I go on tremendous health kicks - exercise, yogurt, no booze.

[1982] Without shame I say that I happen to be an extremely beautiful woman at any age.

[1982] I don't go to movies.

[on MGM] We were told what to do, when to do it and how, and paid very little.

[on leaving Hollywood] Yes, I was swept up, but I didn't have a nervous breakdown or go wild on booze. Years later I couldn't cope any longer. So I quit to remain sane.

[on her career] Had I really cared, I could have been really good, but I didn't.

I had no doubt I'd be a movie queen. The stupidity of youth, no doubt.

Turning 50, that was the tough one.

[1967] They used to write in my studio bios that I was the daughter of a cotton farmer from Chapel Hill. Hell, baby, I was born on a tenant farm in Grabtown. How's that grab ya? Grabtown, North Carolina. And it looks exactly the way it sounds. I should have stayed there. The ones who never left home don't have a pot to pee in, but they're happy. Me, look at me. What did it bring me?

[1982] My life's okay. I wouldn't say this is the best part, but it's better than most people's. I'll just take the rest as it comes.