Judy Holliday

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.

It meant as much to me as winning the Oscar.

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

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

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

We were wavering around like a ship without a sail.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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.