I hated the whole idea of being an actress. I used to throw up before every performance and cry afterward.

I've always loved words. I ate up all the books I could get my hands on, and when I couldn't get books, I read candy wrappers and labels on cereal and toothpaste boxes.

If you can handle a nightclub audience successfully, you can handle anything

In repose, my face looks as though I had gone through a terrible deal in the last five minutes. I have to disguise the expression and get a glassy-eyed look. That's something I learned from my dog.

You have to be smart to play a dumb blonde over and over again and keep the audience's attention without extraordinary physical equipment.

Of course I work hard. Why shouldn't I? Who am I to think I should get things the easy way?

I'm a born and bred New Yorker. I belong here. Everytime I leave it's like losing a leg.

Nobody can give a good performance unless the authors and composers have written a good part, a fact which is often overlooked.

I get very nervous whenever I think about it. I've never done a serious play, and I have such awe of the woman - she's really my only idol. It's going to be a big stretch - certain people come out on stage and your face muscles automatically tense and you get ready to smile.

I'm trying to eliminate every vestige of my own personality, style, approach and get into somebody else's skin. Sometimes I feel I've accomplished it. But when I don't, I'm nobody at all, having left myself at home

We were wavering around like a ship without a sail.

I am not an 'instant' actor... to really do anything, I've got to try it five or six or a dozen times.

Never do nothing you wouldnt want printed on the front page of The New York Times.