Quotes by Judy Holliday

• I am not an 'instant' actor... to really do anything, I've got to try it five or six or a dozen times.
• I was bargaining for time away from Hollywood, and Columbia was bargaining for money. I got what I wanted and they got what they wanted. They knew I was so anxious to do Born Yesterday that I'd have done it for a dollar. They gave me the next best thing.
• I want a part where I can use my own hair, my own voice, and maybe even be literate.
• I thought I was learning about show business. The more painful it was, the more important I thought the experience must be. Hating it, I convinced myself it must be invaluable.
• I think Billie is the kind of girl who would let her hips swing loose.
• I suppose that if I could have quit, I would have, because in those days I never wanted to be an actress, the acting was something to do while I waited for a chance to study writing and directing. But I guess I was just meant to be an actress. Because, here I am.
• I am not a member of any organization listed by the Attorney General as subversive. In any instance where I lent my name in the past, it was certainly without knowledge that such an organization was subversive. I have always been essentially and foremost an American.
• 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.
• We were wavering around like a ship without a sail.
• I could talk about him all day. He's one of the most wonderful things that ever happened to me.
• We gained a great deal of prestige, but not much money. We liked to work so much we couldn't hide it and the club owners paid us accordingly.
• I'm a born and bred New Yorker. I belong here. Everytime I leave it's like losing a leg.
• It meant as much to me as winning the Oscar.
• It's tough when take 1 is technically okay and take 2 has better acting. Out here (Hollywood) they print the first one. That's the one where we all hit the mark on the floor and who cares about the acting.
• Lovers have a right to betray you... friends don't.
• Nobody can give a good performance unless the authors and composers have written a good part, a fact which is often overlooked.
• Now with all this movie business, everybody's coming around wanting to know everything that's happened since I was four. It's like going to an analyst.
• Of course I work hard. Why shouldn't I? Who am I to think I should get things the easy way?
• People have a hard time making me dress up to look like a classy gal.
• You have to be smart to play a dumb blonde over and over again and keep the audience's attention without extraordinary physical equipment.
• They weren't interested in entertainment. They were tough. I learned one trick, which was to be quieter than they were until they had to look at you. It took a lot of agressiveness.
• He didn't maintain my illusion of myself, he gave me an illusion of myself. Before I met him, I never thought of myself as an actress. Boy, he sidetracked me in a great way!
• When they thought of me, they always remembered the vacuous Billie Dawn. It was as simple as that.
• 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.
• 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.
• Acting is a very limited form of expression and those who take it seriously are very limited people. I take it seriously.
• The only actress they didn't test was Garbo. Must have been her accent.