Ava Gardner Quotes

I'm here to tell you, there ain't much forgiveness in that old-time religion. That particular savior was a mean son of a bitch. If you sinned, honey, he was going to get you, no doubt about it. ~ Ava Gardner

I hate cheating. I won't put up with it. I don't do it myself. ~ Ava Gardner

When I lose my temper, honey, you can't find it any place. ~ Ava Gardner

In the picture, Ava Gardner's tousled black hair obscured her right eye, and her full, closed lips were pulled slightly to the right, resulting in something less than a smile. They looked as if they'd been smeared shut with red paint, though the photo was in black and white. It wasn't so much a fuck-me face as a I've-been-there-and-back look, the kind of expression you see only on the most expensive whores. ~ Barry Gifford

I want to remember it all, the good times and the bad times, the late nights, the boozing, the dancing into dawns, and all the great and not-so-great people I met and loved in those years ... ~ Ava Gardner

Although no one believes me, I have always been a country girl and still have a country girl's values ~ Ava Gardner

All I have going is my looks. When my beauty goes, I'm through. ~ Ava Gardner

The truth is that the only time I'm happy is when I'm doing absolutely nothing. I don't understand people who like to work and talk about it like it was some sort of goddamn duty. Doing nothing feel like floating on warm water to me. Delightful, perfect. ~ Ava Gardner

He always called me Daughter. It was to distinguish me from his sister Ava. I loved being called Daughter. It sounded so possessive, and to be possessed when you are a child is just a wonderful feeling. It makes you feel safe. It makes you feel loved. ~ Ava Gardner

When you have to face up to the fact that marriage to the man you love is really over, that's very tough, sheer agony. In that kind of harrowing situation, I always go away and cut myself off from the world. Also, I sober up immediately when there is genuine bad news in my life; I never face it with alcohol in my brain. I just rented a house in Palm Springs and sat there and just suffered for a couple of weeks. I suffered there until I was strong enough to face it. ~ Ava Gardner

I always loved the bad girls in the movies. I loved Bette Davis; I loved Katherine Hepburn. I loved Ava Gardner. ~ Imelda May

Sex isn't all that important, but it is when you love someone very much. ~ Ava Gardner

And the news got worse. It appeared that there was this whole other person Jesus Christ whose birthday a lot of people tended to confuse with mine. I was personally outraged. It was a long time before I forgave the Lord for that. ~ Ava Gardner

When Ava Gardner get in a taxi, the driver knows at once she's Ava Gardner. It's the same for Lana Turner or Elizabeth Taylor, but not for me. I'm never Grace Kelly, I'm always someone who looks like Grace Kelly. ~ Grace Kelly

He will always be my Sir Galahad. ~ Ava Gardner

What I'd really like to say about stardom is that it gave me everything I never wanted. ~ Ava Gardner

The surviving human beings there could do nothing but wait for the end to come. They chose different ways to live out their final days. That was the plot.** It was a dark movie offering no hope of salvation. (Though, watching it, Aomame reconfirmed her belief that everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come.)
**
On the Beach, the 1959 movie, director: Stanley Kramer, writer: John Paxton, starring: Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, Fred Astaire & Anthony Perkins. On the Beach, the 1957 novel, writer: Nevil Shute. ~ Haruki Murakami

Then, aided by the booze, like a fool I tossed off one of those throwaway lines that would have been better thrown away. Ah, Frank! I thought you were going to be down here fucking Lana. ~ Ava Gardner

fame gives you everything you never wanted. ~ Ava Gardner

Elizabeth Taylor is not beautiful, she is pretty - I was beautiful. ~ Ava Gardner

In one scene, when I was supposed to say, "In a pig's eye you are," what came out was, "In a pig's ass you are." Old habits die awfully hard. ~ Ava Gardner

After my screen test, the director clapped his hands gleefully and yelled: "She can't talk! She can't act! She's sensational!" ~ Ava Gardner

Don't think for a minute that bad publicity and endless criticism don't leave their claw marks on everyone concerned. Your friends try to cheer you up by saying lightly, "I suppose you get used to it, and ignore it." You try. You try damned hard. But you never get used to it. It always wounds and hurts. ~ Ava Gardner

Maybe, in the final analysis, they saw me as something I wasn't and I tried to turn them into something they could never be. I loved them all but maybe I never understood any of them. I don't think they understood me. ~ Ava Gardner

Petting is the study of the anatomy in braille. ~ Ava Gardner

Love is nothing but a pain in the ass ~ Ava Gardner

I either write the books or sell the jewels , and I'm kinda sentimental about the jewels. ~ Ava Gardner

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

I caught his drift, but I wasn't going to argue for a single second. Just get me to the Hampshire House, that's all I cared about. Besides, how could I say, "No, I'm not a prositute. I'm Mrs. Frank Sinatra out for an early morning walk in the rain"? ~ Ava Gardner

The year was 1952." I clear my throat and look down at my paper. "It was summer, and Frank Sinatra was on the radio. Lana Turner and Ava Gardner were the starlets of the day. Stormy was eighteen. She was in the marching band, she was voted Best Legs, and she always had a date on Saturday night. On this particular night, she was on a date with a boy named Walt. On a dare, she went skinny-dipping in the town lake. Stormy never could turn down a dare."
Mr. Perelli laughs and says, "That's right, she never could." Other people murmur in agreement, "She never could."
"A farmer called the police, and when they shined their lights on the lake, Stormy told them to turn around before she would come out. She got a ride home in a police car that night."
"Not the first time or the last," someone calls out, and everyone laughs, and I can feel my shoulders start to relax.
"Stormy lived more life in one night than most people do their whole lives. She was a force of nature. She taught me that love--" My eyes well up and I start over. "Stormy taught me that love is about making brave choices every day. That's what Stormy did. She always picked love; she always picked adventure. To her they were one and the same. And now she's off on a new adventure, and we wish her well. ~ Jenny Han

Ava Gardner was the most beautiful woman in the world, and it's wonderful that she didn't cut up her face. She addressed aging by picking up her chin and receiving the light in a better way. And she looked like a woman. She never tried to look like a girl. ~ Sharon Stone

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 ~ Ava Gardner

My fashion icons are Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly and Ava Gardner. Their classic looks and clean lines should be the cornerstones of your wardrobe - white cotton shirts, black Capri pants, pencil skirts and ballerina skirts. ~ Marie Helvin

Fame and fortune does not mean anything if you don't have a happy home. ~ Ava Gardner

For the loot, honey, for the loot. ~ Ava Gardner

Hell, I suppose if you stick around long enough they have to say something nice about you. ~ Ava Gardner

Great idea," I said. "Call the police. Call the fucking police. ~ Ava Gardner

I do everything for a reason. Most of the time the reason is money. ~ Ava Gardner

We thought Bugles and a Tiger and its sequel, The Road Past Mandalay, plus Bhowani Junction, which was made into a movie starring Ava Gardner as a half-caste (or Chi Chi) East Indian and Stewart Granger playing an Indian Army ~ Daniel Hill

But I must say, it's a lonely business fucking someone you no longer love. Especially a husband.
Tough, funny, vulgar, cynical, it was a classic Ava Gardner line.
It rolled off the tongue. I didn't want to lose it.
The problem was I couldn't reconcile it with something she had told me earlier--that she was "even more in love with all three of my husbands the day I left them than the day we married."
-author Peter Evans ~ Peter Evans

I wish to live to 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. ~ Ava Gardner

I think mystery is kind of great. I don't know anything about Bette Davis or Katharine Hepburn or Ava Gardner - not really - and I like that. I love watching their movies because they're my personal movie stars. I don't know what they eat and who their trainer is. ~ Rachel Weisz

The truth is, honey, I've enjoyed my life. I've had a hell of a good time. ~ Ava Gardner

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. ~ Ava Gardner

When he fell down the stairs, he told people he'd had a stroke. He was just pissed out of his skull. I love Dirk, he is such a drama queen. ~ Ava Gardner

Hollywood - that's a place where love is viewed both pragmatically and philosophically in the saying, 'Tis better to have loved and divorced than never to have had any publicity at all. ~ Ava Gardner

When I'm old and gray, I want to have a house by the sea. And paint. With a lot of wonderful chums, good music, and booze around. And a damn good kitchen to cook in. ~ Ava Gardner

I've certainly never taken the care of myself that I should have. On the contrary. I've done a lot of late nights without enough sleep and all that. But I've had fun. Whatever wrinkles are there, I've enjoyed getting them. ~ Ava Gardner

IN A DETECTIVE'S WORLD there was one true blight on society, and it wasn't the master criminal; after all, superpredators were few and far between. It was the media. Sunday ~ Lisa Gardner

He might be worried, but at least he's not upset with me. My family gets up set easily, and he got stuck helping me out. Wrong place. Wrong time.
She tried to turn her face to hide marks.
The nurse told her no.
Everything is right. Right place. Right time for both of you.
Are you from Jamaica? Ava asked, but she knew the answer. The woman had that terrible peace about her that some people were born with. There was no wrong. Everything could be made right. ~ Nicki Salcedo

What I told you about saving people isn't true. You might think it is, because you might want someone else to save you, or you might want to save someone so badly. But no one else can save you, not really. Not from yourself. [ ... ] You fall asleep in the foothills, and the wolf comes down from the mountains. And you hope someone will wake you up. Or chase it off. Or shoot it dead. But when you realize that the wolf is inside you, that's when you know. You can't run from it. And no one who loves you can kill the wolf, because it's part of you. They see your face on it. And they won't fire the shot. ~ Ava Dellaira

everything i know about love
is that it hurts
and is almost always never returned
the way you want it to.

but i have hope
because i do not know everything. ~ AVA.

[the writer] must copy, with his finite mind, the process of the infinite 'I AM. ~ John Gardner

Be confident in who you are, regardless of what you don't have. The more confident you are, the more open you become to share your fears and challenges with your partner. ~ E'yen A. Gardner

The chief offense in bad fiction: we sense that characters are being manipulated, forced to do things they would not really do. ~ John Gardner

pugilist who won every match was dull, she ~ Ashley Gardner

Ava turned to the side, staring out into the dark. In profile, her face was suddenly tired and sad, and Cole felt the urge to wrap himself around her. To protect her from whatever was dragging her down. ~ Danika Stone

If beauty is truth, and truth is beauty, they are defined by each other, so how do we know the meaning of either? ~ Ava Dellaira

Bad news. If you can see it coming, you brace yourself; you weigh the outcome. But there's always that niggling voice, that voice of hope whispering, 'Maybe it's good news.' Whether you can admit it or not, that little whisper is a potent thing. ~ Lily Gardner

It's so much easier to fall in love, and so much more complicated to fall out of it. ~ Lisa Gardner

There was a language specific to all things. The ability to learn another language in one arena, whether it was music, medicine, or finance, could be used to accelerate learning and other arenas, too. ~ Chris Gardner

Because sometimes pain is knowing, and sometimes pain is sharing that knowledge with someone who loves you but can't do anything to help. ~ Lisa Gardner

I love the way you taste, Rebecca," he said, his voice rubbing over my exposed flesh. "I dream about it every night." Then he lifted his eyes and met mine with a gaze so arresting I thought my heart would stop. A wicked smile sliced over his lips. "And now I'll get to taste it every morning. ~ Ava Lore

With this in mind, Ava tells herself to be present and celebrate the holiday instead of wishing it was over. After all, one is given only a certain number of Christmases in one's life. ~ Elin Hilderbrand

Don't be such a party-pooper, missy
when you're well and truly screwed, either you just sit pissing yourself or you invent some reason to hope. ~ James Alan Gardner

The whole structure of the law has to be a dignified, imposing edifice and built on firm foundations, if it is going to stand. Whenever you violate the law, you are tearing down a part of that structure, regardless of what goal you may want to achieve. ~ Erle Stanley Gardner

Ava knew the incidental betrayals of life. ~ Nicki Salcedo

That I've horrified many flight attendants across the globe with my oft-thought morbid ritual of listening to Tuesday's Gone as we fly through the sky is not my concern. My declaration evident, my truth now burns: there is no preordained destiny to battle, I thumb my nose at fate.
I am a warrior. The rules don't apply. ~ Ava Ayers

There is a pivotal point in every interaction between humans which sets the course in their relationship. Do you hide or do you shine? Which way are you going to go?
Hide or shine? ~ Ava Ayers

I'm not brave,' Ava replied huskily. 'If you only knew how afraid I really am. Sometimes I think I am afraid of everything.' 'But isn't that what being brave is all about? Being afraid, but doing it anyway? ~ Kate Forsyth

There are too many ghosts walking this earth. They weigh heavy on the living. ~ Sally Gardner

I'm sure she goes home and talks to whatever friends she has about how brave I am. I didn't choose to be deaf. I have no idea why it makes me brave. ~ Whitney Gardner

But once we realize that people have very different kinds of minds, different kinds of strengths
some people are good in thinking spatially, some in thinking language, others are very logical, other people need to be hands on and explore actively and try things out
then education, which treats everybody the same way, is actually the most unfair education. ~ Howard Gardner

In biology, the most basic assumptions of evolutionary theory elude otherwise able students who insist that the process of evolution is guided by a striving toward perfection. College students who have studied economics offer explanations of market forces that are essentially identical to those preferred by college students who have never taken an economics course. Equally severe biases and stereotypes pervade the humanistic segment of the curriculum, from history to art. Students who can discuss in detail the complex causes of the First World War turn right around and explain equally complex current events in terms of the simplest "good guy-bad guy" scenario. (This habit of mind is not absent from political leaders, who are fond of portraying the most complicated international situations along the lines of a Hollywood script.) Those who have studied the intricacies of modern poetry, learning to esteem T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, show little capacity to distinguish masterworks from amateurish drivel once the identity of the author has been hidden from view. ~ Howard Gardner

Ah, arguing with Ava Kingsley. Just like old times." Only back in college they'd argued in print - weekly. ~ Melissa Tagg

There are days when we can bring before God ... laughter of joy and gratitude. There will be other days when we can only muster a bitter, angry complaint. Be confident that God will accept whatever we lift up before him, and he will make it serve his purpose and our good. ~ Gardner C. Taylor

Memories are funny things, aren't they? They're like your own private little picture show. You can edit and splice and put 'em together any way you want. ~ Layce Gardner

You might be interested in his economic philosophy, Mr. Mason. He believed men attached too much importance to money as such. He believed a dollar represented a token of work performed, that men were given these tokens to hold until they needed the product of work performed by some other man, that anyone who tried to get a token without giving his best work in return was an economic counterfeiter. He felt that most of our depression troubles had been caused by a universal desire to get as many tokens as possible in return for as little work as possibly - that too many men were trying to get lost of tokens without doing any work. He said men should cease to think in terms of tokens and think, instead, only in terms of work performed as conscientiously as possible. ~ Erle Stanley Gardner

One minute you're a happy fourteen-yearold - good at everything you try, popular, fun - the next you're a freak with wings ~ Cynthia Hand

We have to get Bugles," I tell her [ ... ]
"Oh, definitely Bugles," she says. "I'm going to get the sour cream and onion kind." She drops them into the basket she's holding.
"Good idea," I say, happy to be joking around, "And while we're at it, why don't we get some dip for them?"
"Better yet," Ava says. "Let's skip the Blugles and just eat dip." We both collapse into giggles. ~ Lauren Barnholdt

When I was a boy in Salem, Mass., in the 1950s, if you wanted to buy a book, you had to take a train to Boston. And when you got there, to a bookstore, there was no such thing as a science-fiction section. ~ Gardner Dozois

Einstein was remarkable for his powers of concentration; he could work uninterruptedly for hours and even days on the same problem. Some of the topics that interested him remained on his mind for decades. For relaxation he turned to music and to sailing, but often his work would continue during these moments as well; he usually had a notebook in his pocket so that he could jot down any idea that came to him. Once, after the theory of relativity had been put forth, he confessed to his colleague Wolfgang Pauli, "For the rest of my life I want to reflect on what light is." It is perhaps not entirely an accident that a focus on light is also the first visual act of the newborn child. ~ Howard Gardner

Stop psychoanalyzing me! Be less therapist, more man --"

"Man? Last time I tried being a man, you looked at me as if I was going to hit you. You don't need a man, Rainie. You either need a blow-up doll or a damn saint! ~ Lisa Gardner

Are you saying that you like me, Jules Marchenoir?"
"I am saying that I like you very much indeed, Ava Whitefoot. ~ Amy Plum

Others may question your credentials, your papers, your degrees. Others may look for all kinds of ways to diminish your worth. But what is inside you no one can take from you or tarnish. This is your worth, who you really are, your degree that can go with you wherever you go, that you bring with you the moment you come into a room, that can't be manipulated or shaken. Without that sense of self, no amount of paper, no pedigree, and no credentials can make you legit. No matter what, you have to feel legit inside first. ~ Chris Gardner

You astound me, Ava. I've never met a girl who would order what you just did in front of a guy."
"You mean lunch? ~ Nicole Gulla

When I see God I see Beauty, I see Love, I see Joy, I see Peace and I see You. God loves us let us love one another. ~ E'yen A. Gardner