Tony Curtis quotes:

Now I'm a painter. That was another opportunity I was able to pursue, I've been painting all my life, now it's become a second career because of my success in the movies.

I used to be good friends with my depression, saying oh I'm so depressed, or life is terrible.

Even on a personal note, my dressing table downstairs is crowded with things, like a mini landscape. It's a city with buildings and towers and roads. There's a pool and a little park. When I move something around it becomes a different tableau.

I enlisted when I was a boy. The Navy looked after me like my mother. It fed me, took care of me and gave me wonderful opportunities.

You wanna know the secret of life? The saliva of young girls.

They gave me away as a prize once - a Win Tony Curtis For A Weekend competition. The woman who won was disappointed. She'd hoped for second prize - a new stove.

My whole world before I joined the Navy was my neighborhood in the Bronx.

It's such a human condition, whether you're a great track star or a great knitting person or you paint watercolors - someone knows who you are.

At 17, I dreamed of seeing the world. At 19, I had been around the world and back.

I've always believed that service to others is rent we pay for our time on this planet.

I will always remember this summer day in Paris, when I was to perform a great acrobatic move. I can still see myself stepping on the ring of a packed circus along real performers.

Jack Lemmon is my best friend and he's a very wonderful actor. A very talented, very funny man. A lovely man. We're like brothers! We are gifts to each other. He's such a fun personality. There will only ever be one Jack Lemmon.

I'm world famous, everywhere I go there are people who love me because of I've been able to bring them some joy from the movies I've made.

I joined the Navy hoping to be submariner and ended up in the sub service aboard a tender in the Pacific.

If you know how to live in Vegas you can have the best time.

Its not age as much as the experiences I have had.

I like Vegas for its spontaneity.

Like an opera singer, I am able to sing out my song in paint.

For instance, I always have one hanging in Budapest in the mayors office.

We often don't think of them, we think of the great wars and the great battles, but what about losing a son or a daughter, or a girl losing her husband or vice versa? I think of the people who never got the chance to have the opportunities I had.

I've been in the movies for 50 years, I've made 130 some-odd movies.

The movie business is very twisted, out of site, out of mind, you know.

I don't know what organically grown chickens are; I've never seen one.

I've made 122 movies, and I daresay there's a picture of mine showing somewhere in the world every day.

I wouldn't be caught dead marrying a woman old enough to be my wife.

But where there is no art show, I would still be painting.

Everywhere I go in the world, people know me and recognise me and really show affection for me.

Every movie I've been in has ended up on television.

I look at everything in an artistic way.

I was born in and worked in a period that could be called enviable.

Art is an emotional experience

But my longevity is due to my good timing.

Hollywood ... the most sensational merry-go-around ever built.

I can't sit around and wait for the telephone to ring.

I enjoy being recognized whatever environment I'm in.

I want the public to know that it will be an honor for me to meet them and spend a few special moments with all those who helped me through my filmed career.

If you don't know your gift, you've got no lift.

It is for the latter that I always wanted to be an actor: to play characters who are always on the move.

I've just opened a show in Florida, although I also have many pieces on display around the world.

Joe: We can't just walk out on her without saying goodbye. Jerry: What? Since when? You usually walk out and leave 'em with nothing but a kick in the teeth. Joe: That's when I was a saxophone player. Now I'm a millionaire.

On kissing Marilyn Monroe: It's like kissing Hitler.

Painting is much more than therapy to me its a way of life.

That so many people respond to me is fabulous. It is like having a kind of Alzheimer's disease, where everyone knows you and you don't know anyone.

The government gave me enough money to go to acting school.

The service meant so much to me. You don't know privileged I feel and how lucky I am to have served.

When I was in bed with Marilyn Monroe, I was never sure before, during or after, where her mind was.

While you're doing it, you don't really know what you're doing.

Women are beginning to lose their identity. They have jumped with teeth clenched, fists braced and eyes aglow, into the competitive man's world. They're losing the vibrant quality of femininity, the aura of mystery.