Always be a first rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else.
Behind every cloud is another cloud.
When you get to know a lot of people, you make a great discovery. You find that no one group has a monopoly on looks, brains, goodness or anything else. It takes all the people - black and white, Catholic, Jewish and Protestant, recent immigrants and Mayflower descendants - to make up America.
For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.
If I am a legend, then why am I so lonely?
I believe that the real expression of your religious beliefs is shown in the daily pattern of your life, in what you contribute to your surroundings and what you take away without infringing on the rights of other people.
A really great reception makes me feel like I have a great big warm heating pad all over me. People en masse have always been wonderful to me. I truly have a great love for an audience, and I used to want to prove it to them by giving them blood.
If you have to be in a soap opera try not to get the worst role.
I've never looked through a keyhole without finding someone was looking back.
From the time I was thirteen, there was a constant struggle between MGM and me - whether or not to eat, how much to eat, what to eat. I remember this more vividly than anything else about my childhood.
Hollywood is a strange place if you're in trouble. Everybody thinks it's contagious.
I can live without money, but I cannot live without love.
I was always lonesome. The only time I felt accepted or wanted was when I was on stage performing. I guess the stage was my only friend: the only place where I could feel comfortable. It was the only place where I felt equal and safe.
I'm a woman who wants to reach out and take 40 million people in her arms.
It's lonely and cold on the top... lonely and cold.
I think there's something peculiar about me that I haven't died. It doesn't make sense but I refuse to die.
I think that I have every right to write a book. I think I'm interesting. I have perspective about me.
I try to bring the audience's own drama - tears and laughter they know about - to them.
I don't always have to sing a song. There is something besides 'The Man That Got Away' or 'Over the Rainbow' or 'The Trolley Song.' There's a woman. There are three children. There's me! There's a lot of life going here.
There have been a lot of stories written about me, some of them fantastically distorted.
My father's death was the most terrible thing that happened to me in my life.
You are never so alone as when you are ill on stage. The most nightmarish feeling in the world is suddenly to feel like throwing up in front of four thousand people.
My mother had a marvelous talent for mishandling money - mine.
I wasn't close to my father, but I wanted to be all my life. He had a funny sense of humor, and he laughed all the time - good and loud, like I do. He was a gay Irish gentleman and very good-looking. And he wanted to be close to me, too, but we never had much time together.
There have been times when I have deliberately tried to take my life... I think I must have been crying for some attention.
I've seen the ticket, and I still can't believe it. When I see the money, I hope I don't hit the floor.
I was born at the age of twelve on an MGM lot.
I've always taken 'The Wizard of Oz' very seriously, you know. I believe in the idea of the rainbow. And I've spent my entire life trying to get over it.
How strange when an illusion dies. It's as though you've lost a child.
In the silence of night I have often wished for just a few words of love from one man, rather than the applause of thousands of people.
