Quotes by Ava Gardner

I never played a woman who was smarter than me.

There was no way the marriages could have survived. Nor do I regret that they didn't.

I think the most vulgar thing about Hollywood is the way it believes its own gossip.

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.

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

Doing nothing feels like floating on warm water to me. Delightful, perfect.

I was born with good health and a strong body and spent years abusing them.

It's a pity nobody believes in simple lust anymore.

I did a lot of hokey movies when I was starting out at MGM. Good and bad, mostly bad.

I do owe Mickey one thing: he taught me how much I enjoyed sex.

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.

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

Mickey -- the smallest husband I ever had and the biggest mistake I ever made -- well, that year, it was.

I go on tremendous health kicks -- exercise, yogurt, no booze. Of course, I smoke too much.

Petting is the study of the anatomy in braille.

Mama, you know, poor baby, she'd had her family all finished: four daughters and a couple of sons, and suddenly, I arrived in her midlife on Christmas Eve 1922.

Nobody could pile on the applesauce like Mickey. He was the best liar in the world -- well, Frank Sinatra can tell a good story, too, but I don't believe he was ever unfaithful to me.

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

The truth is that the only time I'm happy is when I'm doing absolutely nothing. I don't understand people who like to work and talk about it like it was some sort of goddamn duty. Doing nothing feel like floating on warm water to me. Delightful, perfect.

He will always be my Sir Galahad.

Fame and fortune does not mean anything if you don't have a happy home.

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.

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

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.

Oh, what the hell did I know? I went to the set the first day in full makeup and the director told me to take it off. So I did the film without makeup. I had nothing to do with anything I did. I never understood why I was so famous.

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

It's a shame that it didn't work out with Mick. I was hopelessly in love with him.

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.

I thought I was making fifty dollars a week at MGM, but it turned out to be $35 because twelve weeks of the year you were on layoff. It was white slavery, and it lasted for seventeen years.

I was never an actress -- none of us kids at Metro were. We were just good to look at.

Sing me not a song; let me hear your recital of veneration and respect; this I will listen to over and over when I share your need of pleasing.

I don't mind growing old. If I have to go before my time, this is how I'll go -- cigarette in one hand, glass of scotch in the other.

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

The marriages to Mickey and Artie were easy come, easy go. I called them my 'starter husbands!'

I'm not saying my own looks don't give the game away. Nothing I can do about that anymore. A nip and tuck ain't gonna do it.

To be possessed when you are a child is just a wonderful feeling. It makes you feel safe. It makes you feel loved. But later if anyone tried to possess me -- oh boy, I was out of there.

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.

I either write the book or sell the jewels. And I'm kinda sentimental about the jewels.

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

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.

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.

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?

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

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.

I want to remember it all, the good times and the bad times, the late nights, the boozing, the dancing into dawns, and all the great and not-so-great people I met and loved in those years.

I've certainly never taken the care of myself that I should have. On the contrary. I've done a lot of late nights without enough sleep and all that. But I've had fun. Whatever wrinkles are there, I've enjoyed getting them.

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.'

Great idea, I said. Call the police. Call the fucking police.

I fell down in Hyde Park with a friend who'd had a hip operation, and neither of us could get up again. People must have thought we were a couple of drunks rolling around and walked on by.

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

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.

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

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

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