Sophia Loren

"I've never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. I don't understand people who hide from their past. Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now."

"I was born wise. Street-wise, people-wise, self-wise. This wisdom was my birthright. I was also born old. And illegitimate. But the two big advantages I had at birth were to have been born wise and to have been born in poverty."

"I was not intrigued with the accouterments of success and fame, the furs, jewels, expensive automobiles and mansions... I can assure you that these things were not on my mind when I sat spellbound in that Pozzuoli movie house. It was what these performers on the screen were doing, not what they received for doing it."

"I was blessed with a sense of my own destiny. I have never sold myself short. I have never judged myself by other people’s standards. I have always expected a great deal of myself, and if I fail, I fail myself. So failure or reversal does not bring out resentment in me because I cannot blame others for any misfortune that befalls me."

"My philosophy is that it's better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe and not to explore at all."

"A woman's dress should be like a barbed-wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view."

"Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical."

"Sex appeal is fifty percent what you've got and fifty percent what people think you've got."

"Nothing makes a woman more beautiful than the belief that she is beautiful."

"There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will have truly defeated age."

"Being beautiful can never hurt, but you have to have more. You have to sparkle, you have to be fun, you have to make your brain work if you have one. Being a Hollywood beauty was a mixed blessing. Men are men, with all that testosterone, and when a pretty girl comes in front of them what can you expect? The fact that I became one is probably the loveliest, most glamorous and fortunate misunderstanding."

"After all these years, I am still involved in the process of self-discovery. It's better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe. Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life."

"My mother’s feelings were all closed off inside herself…I was allowed to be a part of it, never in a good way, never like mother and daughter."

"I wanted to be able to walk into the kind of places my father walked into. I wanted to understand what it was like to live like he did. I wanted reasons. I wanted answers…But I got nowhere."

"Not at first. She was against new things. She thought I would never be successful, and that was wrong, she was wrong. Later she started to believe that I could maybe be somebody. But it was always a big maybe. To her, the life that I wanted, it was all a dream. And she didn’t believe in dreams."

"Naples is so strong, so vital. It’s about music and dance. Books and books of history. Read all the books first and then we can talk."

"Yes, well, maybe sometimes. But then I say to myself: ‘Shut up. Be strong. Just keep going and try. Sometimes you make mistakes and sometimes you win.’ I made some mistakes,”…But still I won."

"Sophia Loren, my favorite actress"