Ava Gardner Quotes

1. 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.

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

3. I think the main reason my marriages failed is that I always loved too well but never wisely.

4. Deep down, I'm pretty superficial. 

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



6. I suffered, I really suffered, with all three of my husbands. And I tried damn hard with all three, starting each marriage certain that it was going to last until the end of my life. Yet none of them lasted more than a year or two.

7. Because I was promoted as a sort of a siren and played all those sexy broads, people made the mistake of thinking I was like that off the screen. They couldn't have been more wrong.

8. When I’m old and gray, I want to have a house by the sea. And paint. With a lot of wonderful chums, good music, and booze around. And a damn good kitchen to cook in.

9. I wish to live to 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.

10. Go fuck yourself," I replied, always the lady. "I'm staying here.

11. Sex isn't all that important, but it is when you love someone very much.

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

13. When you have to face up to the fact that marriage to the man you love is really over, that's very tough, sheer agony. In that kind of harrowing situation, I always go away and cut myself off from the world. Also, I sober up immediately when there is genuine bad news in my life; I never face it with alcohol in my brain. I just rented a house in Palm Springs and sat there and just suffered for a couple of weeks. I suffered there until I was strong enough to face it.

14. 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.

15. Hell, I suppose if you stick around long enough they have to say something nice about you.

16. Maybe, in the final analysis, they saw me as something I wasn't and I tried to turn them into something they could never be. I loved them all but maybe I never understood any of them. I don't think they understood me.

17. So this was where lust was satisfied. If I'd been an old-time miner I'd have asked for my gold nugget back.

18. And I won 'em back fair and square. So what are you going to do about it? Want to fight? Who wants the first bloody nose?

19. In one scene, when I was supposed to say, "In a pig's eye you are," what came out was, "In a pig's ass you are." Old habits die awfully hard.

20. I hate cheating. I won’t put up with it. I don’t do it myself.

21. I'm here to tell you, there ain't much forgiveness in that old-time religion. That particular savior was a mean son of a bitch. If you sinned, honey, he was going to get you, no doubt about it.






22. Don't think for a minute that bad publicity and endless criticism don't leave their claw marks on everyone concerned. Your friends try to cheer you up by saying lightly: "I suppose you get used to it, and ignore it." You try. You try damned hard. But you never get used to it. It always wounds and hurts.

23. Our phone bills were astronomical, and when I found the letters Frank wrote me the other day, the total could fill a suitcase. Every single day during our relationship, no matter where in the world I was, I'd get a telegram from Frank saying he loved me and missed me. He was a man who was desperate for companionship and love. Can you wonder that he always had mine!

24. And the news got worse. It appeared that there was this whole other person Jesus Christ whose birthday a lot of people tended to confuse with mine. I was personally outraged. It was a long time before I forgave the Lord for that.

25. Then, aided by the booze, like a fool I tossed off one of those throwaway lines that would have been better thrown away. "Ah, Frank! I thought you were going to be down here fucking Lana.






26. I caught his drift, but I wasn't going to argue for a single second. Just get me to the Hampshire House, that's all I cared about. Besides, how could I say: "No, I'm not a prostitute. I'm Mrs. Frank Sinatra out for an early morning walk in the rain?

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

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

29. 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.



30. Nobody ever called it an intellectual profession.

31. I couldn't imagine a better place (Australia) for making a film on the end of the world.

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

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

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

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

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

37. 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.


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

39. If I had my life to live over again, I'd live it the same way. Maybe a few changes here or there, but nothing special. The truth is, honey, I've enjoyed my life. I've had a hell of a good time.

40. On one level, all I wanted to be was an actress, and I often felt that if only I could act, everything about my life and career would have been different. But I was never an actress - none of us kids at Metro were. We were just good to look at.

41. Some people say Liz and I are whores, but we are saints. We do not hide our loves hypocritically, and when in love, we are loyal and faithful to our men. (On the subject of her multiple marriages)

42. Day by day our duties are expanding.

43. I like interacting with others and this gives me the opportunity to become more involved. I've enjoyed explaining the importance of the campaign to my co-workers.

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