(Of her Mrs. Robinson role in `The Graduate`) Film critics said I gave a voice to the fear we all have: that we`ll reach a point in our lives, look around and realize that all the things we said we`d do and become will never come to be - and that we`re ordinary.

If you marry the wrong person for the wrong reasons, then no matter how hard you work, it`s never going to work, because then you have to completely change yourself, completely change them, completely - by that time, you`re both dead.

He understands not only with his brain but with his heart. And that might be called love. Not quite sure, but maybe that`s the key.

So I think you have to marry for the right reasons, and marry the right person.

I don`t quite jump for joy, but I am awfully glad to see him.

[from 1984] The only reason I`m still not doing "Daughter of Gorilla at Large" is because my personal life had become a shambles. Every picture I did was worse than the last one and every man I was in love with was worse than the last one. I was terribly immature. I was going steadily downhill in terms of self-respect and dignity.

I`d never had so much pleasure with another human being.

There are always good parts. They may not pay what you want, and they may not have as many days` work as you want, they may not have the billing that you want, they may not have a lot of things, but - the content of the role itself - I find there are many roles.

I was at a point where I was ready to say I am what I am because of what I am and if you like me I`m grateful, and if you don`t, what am I going to do about it?

When I hear his key in the lock at night my heart starts to beat faster. I`m just so happy he`s coming home. We have so much fun.

I am quite surprised, that with all my work, and some of it is very, very good, that nobody talks about The Miracle Worker. We`re talking about Mrs. Robinson. I understand the world... I`m just a little dismayed that people aren`t beyond it yet.

[on John Ford] Marvelous but loony, tearing out pages of the script everywhere.

[of her Mrs. Robinson role in The Graduate (1967)] Film critics said I gave a voice to the fear we all have: that we`ll reach a point in our lives, look around and realize that all the things we said we`d do and become will never come to be - and that we`re ordinary.

When [Mel Brooks] told his Jewish mother he was marrying an Italian girl, she said: "Bring her over. I`ll be in the kitchen - with my head in the oven".

The best way to get most husbands to do something is to suggest that perhaps they`re too old to do it.

Life is here only to be lived so that we can, through life, earn the right to death, which to me is paradise. Whatever it is that will bring me the reward of paradise, I`ll do the best I can.

I was at a point where I was ready to say, "I am what I am because of what I am and if you like me I`m grateful, and if you don`t, what am I going to do about it?"