Ava Gardner quotes:

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

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

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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

Petting is the study of the anatomy in braille.

He will always be my Sir Galahad.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Women's liberation as a movement makes some valid points. But in the final analysis, it doesn't matter who wears the pants - as long as there's money in the pockets.

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.

I do everything for a reason. Most of the time the reason is money.

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 deseperate for companionship and love. Can you wonder that he always had mine!

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

I dealt with men who had tempers, and who could get violent-Lord knows how I had to defend myself against Howard Hughes and Frank Sinatra, and from Artie Shaw's verbal abuse. But George [C. Scott] was a different category of animal when he got drunk. He'd break into my hotel room, which he did in Italy, London and at the Beverly Hills Hotel, attack me to where I was frightened for my life, and scream, 'Why won't you marry me?' Well, I would never marry a man who couldn't control his liquor. Me, I'm a happy drunk. I laugh, I dance. I certainly don't break bottles and threaten to kill.

All I have going is my looks. When my beauty goes, I'm through.

Itâ??s a pity nobody believes in simple lust anymore.

I am deeply superficial.

Love is nothing but a pain in the ass

Fame gives you everything you never wanted.

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

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.

Hollywood - that's a place where love is viewed both pragmatically and philosophically in the saying, 'Tis better to have loved and divorced than never to have had any publicity at all.

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

I was lazy. I would have been a hell of a lot better actress had I taken it more seriously. I never had the proper respect for acting. Quite often, I learned my lines on the way to the studio.

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

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.

I couldn't imagine a better place [Australia] for making a film on the end of the world.

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

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

For the loot, honey, for the loot.