Judy Holliday Quotes

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!

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.

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.

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.

If you can handle a nightclub audience successfully, you can handle anything.

People have a hard time making me dress up to look like a classy gal.

The only actress they didn't test was Garbo. Must have been her accent.

I could talk about him all day. He's one of the most wonderful things that ever happened to me.

You have to be smart to play a dumb blonde over and over again and keep the audience's attention without extraordinary physical equipment.

Never do nothing you wouldnt want printed on the front page of The New York Times.

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 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.

Nobody can give a good performance unless the authors and composers have written a good part, a fact which is often overlooked.

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 hated the whole idea of being an actress. I used to throw up before every performance and cry afterward.

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.

When they thought of me, they always remembered the vacuous Billie Dawn. It was as simple as that.

Lovers have a right to betray you ... friends don't.

Acting is a very limited form of expression and those who take it seriously are very limited people. I take it seriously.

It meant as much to me as winning the Oscar.