Greta Garbo Quotes

1. Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.



2. I want to be alone. 


3. I never said: "I want to be alone." I only said: "I want to be left alone." There is all the difference.

4. There are many things in your heart you can never tell to another person. They are you, your private joys and sorrows, and you can never tell them. You cheapen yourself, the inside of yourself, when you tell them.

5. Life would be so wonderful if we only knew what to do with it.

6. Being a movie star, and this applies to all of them, means being looked at from every possible direction. You are never left at peace, you're just fair game.



7. I don't want to be a silly temptress. I cannot see any sense in getting dressed up and doing nothing but tempting men in pictures.

8. The story of my life is about back entrances, side doors, secret elevators and other ways of getting in and out of places so that people won't bother me.

9. If you are blessed, you are blessed, whether you are married or single.

10. There seems to be a law that governs all our actions so I never make plans.
 
11. Is there anything better than to be longing for something, when you know it is within reach?

12. This is where I have wasted the best years of my life.


13. I smoke all the time, one after the other.

14. I wish I were supernaturally strong so I could put right everything that is wrong.

15. You don't have to be married to have a good friend as your partner for life.

16. If only those who dream about Hollywood knew how difficult it all is.


17. There are some who want to get married and others who don't. I have never had an impulse to go to the altar. I am a difficult person to lead.


18. There is no one who would have me - I can't cook.

19. It is bitter to think of one's best years disappearing in this unpolished country.

20. I'm tired and nervous and I'm in America. Here you don't know that you live.

21. My talents fall within definite limitations. I am not as versatile an actress as some think.

22. Every one of us lives his life just once; if we are honest, to live once is enough.


23. I'm afraid of nothing except being bored.


24. It's not just her face, which is gorgeous. It's that she's attractive in a much fuller way than that.

25. If you are confirmed, you will essentially disappear from public view. This hearing will, in some ways, be the last time that the nation will see you at work.

26. How can one change one's entire life and build a new one on one moment of love? And yet, that's what you make me want to close my eyes and do.

27. I'm a completely worthless woman and no man should risk his life for me.

28. I'm not always sincere. One can't be in this world, you know.

29. Why should you care for a woman like me? I'm always nervous or sick, or sad or too gay.





30. Why haven't I got a husband and children?" mused Greta Garbo to the Dutchess of Windsor, "I never met a man I could marry.

31. Perhaps it's better if I live in your heart, where the world can't see me. If I'm dead, there will be no stain on our love.

32. (When asked in her later years by a fan if she is Greta Garbo): "I * was* Greta Garbo.

33. If you're going to die on screen, you've got to be strong and in good health.

34. I live like a monk: with one toothbrush, one cake of soap, and a pot of cream.






35. (On Hollywood in 1926) Here, it is boring, incredibly boring, so boring I can't believe it's true.

36. (on her recreational preferences (1932)) If I needed recreation, I liked to be out of doors: to trudge about in a boy's coat and boy's shoes; to ride horseback, or shoot craps with the stable boys, or watch the sun set in a blaze of glory over the Pacific Ocean. You see, I am still a bit of a tomboy. Most hostesses disapprove of this trousered attitude to life, so I do not inflict upon them.

37. (on another factor contributing to her decision to shun publicity (1932)) I am still a little nervous, a little self-conscious about my English. I cannot express myself well at parties. I speak haltingly. I feel awkward, shy, afraid. In Hollywood, where every teat table bristles with gossip-writers, what I say might be misunderstood. So I am silent as the grave about my private affairs. Rumors fly about. I am mum. My private affairs are strictly private.

38. (on director Mauritz Stiller, the nature of her relationship to him and the part it played in cultivating her well-publicized preference for privacy over publicity (1932)) Stiller's death was a great blow to me. For so long I had been his satellite. All Europe at that time regarded Stiller as the most significant figure in the film world. Directors hurried to the projecting rooms where his prints were shown. They took with them their secretaries and, in the dim silence, they dictated breathless comments on the wide sweep of his magnificent technique. Stiller had found me, an obscure artist in Sweden, and brought me to America. I worshiped him. There are some, of course, who say it was a love story. It was more. It was utter devotion which only the very young can know - the adoration of a student for her teacher, of a timid girl for a master mind. In his studio, Stiller taught me how to do everything: how to eat; how to turn my head; how to express love - and hate. Off the screen I studied his every whim, wish and demand. I lived my life according to the plans he laid down. He told what to say and what to do. When Stiller died I found myself like a ship without a rudder. I was bewildered - lost - and very lonely. I resolutely refused to talk to reporters because I didn't know what to say. By degrees I dropped out of the social whirl of Hollywood. I retired into my shell. I built a wall of repression around my real self, and I lived - and still live - behind it.

39. The Temptress has now been shown here - terrible. The story, Garbo, everything is extremely bad. It is no exaggeration to say that I was dreadful. I was tired, I couldn't sleep and everything went wrong. But the main reason is, I suppose, that I'm no actress.

40. It could be so beautiful here if the Americans themselves had not made it so ugly with their big buildings, their millions of cars, and noise ...

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