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

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

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.

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

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

Maybe I just didn`t have the temperament for stardom. I`ll never forget seeing Bette Davis at the Hilton in Madrid. I went up to her and said, "Miss Davis, I`m Ava Gardner and I`m a great fan of yours." And do you know, she behaved exactly as I wanted her to behave. "Of course you are, my dear," she said. "Of course you are." And she swept on. Now that`s a star.

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

[in 1985, on why she came out of retirement to appear on a prime-time soap opera] "For the loot, honey, for the loot.

I wish to live until 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 made it as a star dressed, and if it ain`t dressed, I don`t want it.

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

Everybody kisses everybody else in this crummy business all the time. It`s the kissiest business in the world.

After my screen test, the director clapped his hands gleefully and yelled, "She can`t talk! She can`t act! She`s sensational!"

Deep down, I`m pretty superficial.

I couldn`t imagine a better place [Australia] for making a film on the end of the world.

Nobody ever called it an intellectual profession.

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

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.

When I lose my temper, honey, you can`t find it any place.

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

All I ever got out of any of my marriages was the two years Artie Shaw financed on an analyst`s couch.