"Powerful women often get concerned with this idea that they’re going to be seen in this unforgiving light. Screw that. It’s so old-fashioned… It’s so uninspired and actually really cowardly."

"It is important to remind young people that peace is the only victory."

"It's important to figure out your own life before involving someone else."

"Just because you're in the spotlight, or just because you're an actor or making films or whatever, doesn't mean that you're not entitled to your own personal privacy. I think no matter what the context, if that is besieged in some way, it feels unjust. It feels wrong."

"I believe that luck is opportunity meeting preparation."

"A great woman needs a man who will love her and treat her with dignity, but she is so impatient that she gives in to the first man who knocks on her door without caring so much about his attitude towards her."

"Everything you do is different, and you find different chords in every character that you play that strike true with you."

"When we live our lives every day, we're met by opportunities, and most of us don't even recognize them."

"It's important not to lose who you are in a relationship just because it's nice to cuddle with somebody."

"If you love something, you have to set it free!"

"I am very independent. I can look after myself but I still need a lot of love and care."

"Well you know, I don’t think I have never really seen a film of this genre, where the female characters' sex appeal sort of came second. I mean of course they’re sexy characters. When you have a sexy secretary, or a girl swinging around by her ankles in a cat suit, you know that’s innately sexy, but the fact is that these characters are intelligent. They’re ambitious. They’re motivated and calculated to some degree."

"I read a lot of things about myself that aren't true … I've read that I've been with people I've never met. It's nice not to have any attachment, but, likewise, it's nice to have a boyfriend. I'm open to that. But it's hard, when you're working constantly, to spend enough time with someone."

"Don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t do drugs, and get enough sleep. A healthy lifestyle will increase your lifespan considerably."

"I’ve never acted my age and I never will. It’s just the way I’ve always been."

"I have done A movies too, but I preferred doing B movies—if that’s what people want to call them, then so be it. Elvis Presley did B movies; Jack Nicholson did B movies,… So when I am referred to as ‘The Queen of the B Movies,’ I leave that to the person who reads it."

"... in those days, there were hardly any women who headlined movies. Men always had first billing, unless it was a Joan Crawford or Bette Davis movie. But I starred in most of my so-called B movies."

"They said I wasn’t the type for it, so they put a dark blonde wig on me. They wanted me to look like Grace Kelly with breasts."

"In films, she [Jayne Mansfield] played mostly character roles, while Marilyn did more sophisticated movies, and I did several rock 'n roll movies. The three of us were often compared, maybe because we had blonde hair, but all three of us were very different."

"You know, talking about Marilyn Monroe is strange. To me, she’s a person; to most people, she’s an idea."

"She [Marilyn Monroe] was so vulnerable to the world, but what a sweet person she really was, lovable, compassionate—I have nothing but grace for Marilyn, and she should have been at least nominated for an Academy Award for Bus Stop.. But in those days, they preferred to nominate the Bette Davis kind of stars."

"The studio didn’t really know how to groom a female star because they only had male stars ... they didn’t know what to do with a well-endowed blonde, except giving her dumb roles."

"Marilyn came along in the 1950s. She really opened the door for me. When I got my contract at Universal, I was their answer to Marilyn Monroe. They made my hair platinum, and they gave me a lot of sexy roles—dumb roles, actually."

"Sometimes I’m misunderstood and it’s hard to come by that. My life has been full of excitement. I’ve done pretty much what I wanted to do. I came from the Midwest, from South Dakota, and I came up the hard way. We lived on a farm; we didn’t even have electricity or running water if you know what I mean. People don’t know what that life is like."

"I could understand if they picked Katharine Hepburn, but of course she wouldn't do it. But when they asked me, I thought at first it was a mistake. I thought they got me mixed up with Bette Davis. Attention embarrasses me. I don't like to be on display. I was always an extrovert in my work, but when it comes time to be myself I'll take a powder every time."

"I'm a tough old broad from Brooklyn. Don't try to make me into something I'm not. If you want someone to tiptoe down the Barkley staircase in crinoline and politely ask where the cattle went, get another girl."

"With Barbara Stanwyck, here was a true pro, in her last year of screen stardom. We shot mostly on locations just to save money. One day, I saw her applying her own makeup beside the truck before the shoot. She looked up and just shrugged. Who could blame her? This production was cost-efficient."

"Here was an actress that never played just one side of a character. She always played the truth. I once asked Barbara Stanwyck the secret of acting, and she said, "Just be truthful, and if you can fake that, you've got it made.""

"Working with Barbara Stanwyck was one of the greatest pleasures of my career."

"There's nothing phony about her, either in life or on the screen."

"My only problem is finding a way to play my fortieth fallen female in a different way from my thirty-ninth."

"I never got a Oscar. I never had an acting lesson. Life was my only training."

"People talk about 'my career,' but 'career' is too pompous a word. It was a job, and I have always felt very privileged to be paid for what I love doing."

"People go, "You’re so brave." I go, "No, I think I’m stupid" [...] It’s so strange to me because artists are free-thinkers, for the most part. You can be cooking meth and sleeping with hookers, as long as apparently you didn’t vote for Trump. I feel like I’m in The Twilight Zone a bit, with the whole concept of it."

"You are not in business to be popular."

"I love animals, but I hadn’t had a pet since I was a kid. I recently got a dog and he’s not only made me a happier girl—he’s made me much more sympathetic to animal rights. I look at my beautiful dog and think, “Of course I’d never eat him or skin him for his fur, so why would I be okay with eating a cow or wearing a cheetah?” It’s just not right. It’s a contradiction. … I don’t think you can force people to change their attitudes, but you can help to educate them and to lead by example. … There are way too many amazing faux fur options out there for people to still be wearing real fur. I want people to know that there are options; that killing a poor animal and wearing it isn’t cool. But respecting all life forms is cool. Very cool."

"I don't believe in the institution of marriage, for me. If you love somebody and have a commitment that is strong and spiritual, then I just don't think a piece of paper makes any difference. I'm part of that whole school of thought that says when homosexuals can get married, maybe I'll start opening my mind to it."

"I wanted to go into art history. Acting fell into my lap when a neighbor took pictures of me and showed them to an agent."

"Just got a very kind acknowledgment [...] Thank you Sir, I wish you were still on Twitter... as you should be."

"I'm really shallow when I come to guys. I only date really good looking, well-endowed guys, with great bodies. My friends are always going on at me. I'm like "I can't help it! I'm just a woman with high standards!""

"A lot of celebrities...shouldn't [talk politics]... They're pretty out of touch with the common person, the everyday guy out there providing for their family."

"It's easy to work with Mark. He doesn't complain, he shows up, does his job and he's easygoing. But the main reason I keep wanting him to get hired is he has some pictures of me with a farm animal! [Clooney's pet potbellied pig Max] I've had him for almost 14 years — my longest relationship to date."

"It's weird; I've been to prison, I've seen the worst sort of violence and negative shit in the streets, but when it comes to putting my heart on the line and letting somebody get to know me in a relationship, it's very difficult."

"It's all going to go sometime. You can't take it with you. I'm not saying you should wake up every day with sunshine streaming out of your head. If I could get one day a month, I would be very grateful. But I don't want to sound like I'm complaining. I'm just figuring certain things out. It's taken me a while, and some things I could probably do without knowing."

"I've been on my own for a number of years now, but I've also found myself very alone. My family looks at me differently now, and that's the hardest thing to deal with, because you want to go home and be the person that you used to be. Obviously, I'm 28 years old and I can't go home and just be my mum's little baby."

"I just fell into the acting thing as kind of an accident."

"I've questioned issues of gender and sexuality since I was a teenager, and I did some experimenting."

"I think it caught on because the stories that these four girls have individually in the book are extremely relatable. They’re very real teenage experiences. I think the friendship between the four girls is something that is more realistic than a lot of the relationships we see between girls in movies lately. A lot of the time it’s like backstabbing or petty or superficial. I think most girls’ relationships are real friendships like these. I don’t think they’re that much more dramatic."