I`ve never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. I don`t understand people who hide from their past. Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now.

There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.

Sex appeal is fifty percent what you`ve got and fifty percent what people think you`ve got.

The word "Action!" frees me - the transformation is something I cannot explain - too much analysis might destroy it

When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.

Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.

Nothing makes a woman more beautiful than the belief that she is beautiful.

[on actress Gina Lollobrigida] Gina`s personality is limited. She is good playing a peasant but is incapable of playing a lady. That said, I don`t think she`s positively mad about me. Because I`m bigger than she? It`s possible. Who knows?

It`s a game I never play. - Sophia Loren on adultery

Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go much further than people with vastly superior talent.

[on Gina Lollobrigida] Gina`s personality is limited. She is good playing a peasant but is incapable of playing a lady. That said, I don`t think she`s positively mad about me. Because I`m bigger than she? It`s possible. Who knows?

Many people think they want things, but they don`t really have the strength, the discipline. They are weak. I believe that you get what you want if you want it badly enough.

A mother has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.

[on Marcello Mastroianni] Marcello is a man who thinks like a man, talks like a man -- is a man! He has so much magnetism, he brings out the very soul in a woman.

[on Gregory Peck] One of the most charming men I`ve ever met.

[on Tyrone Power] Tyrone Power was my ideal man.

A woman`s dress should be like a barbed wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view.

Cooking is an act of love, a gift, a way of sharing with others the little secrets -- "piccoli segreti" -- that are simmering on the burners.

[explaining why she stopped doing nude scenes] When Sophia Loren is naked, that is a lot of nakedness.

[on adultery] It`s a game I never play.

Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go so much further than people with vastly superior talent.

Mistakes are a part of the dues one pays for a full life.

Sex appeal is 50% what you`ve got and 50% what people think you`ve got.