Elizabeth Taylor Quotations

People who know me well, call me Elizabeth. I dislike Liz.

When people say, 'She's got everything', I've got one answer - I haven't had tomorrow.

I really don't remember much about Cleopatra. There were a lot of other things going on.

The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.

I'm a survivor - a living example of what people can go through and survive.

I adore wearing gems, but not because they are mine. You can't possess radiance, you can only admire it.

It is strange that the years teach us patience; that the shorter our time, the greater our capacity for waiting.

So much to do, so little done, such things to be.

I suppose when they reach a certain age some men are afraid to grow up. It seems the older the men get, the younger their new wives get.

I've always admitted that I'm ruled by my passions.

Some of my best leading men have been dogs and horses.

I feel very adventurous. There are so many doors to be opened, and I'm not afraid to look behind them.

My mother says I didn't open my eyes for eight days after I was born, but when I did, the first thing I saw was an engagement ring. I was hooked.

You find out who your real friends are when you're involved in a scandal.

I fell off my pink cloud with a thud.

I have a woman's body and a child's emotions.

I don't think President Bush is doing anything at all about Aids. In fact, I'm not sure he even knows how to spell Aids.

Everything makes me nervous - except making films.

I think I'm finally growing up - and about time.

I've only slept with men I've been married to. How many women can make that claim?

I haven't read any of the autobiographies about me.

If someone's dumb enough to offer me a million dollars to make a picture, I'm certainly not dumb enough to turn it down.

I am a very committed wife. And I should be committed too - for being married so many times.

I've been through it all, baby, I'm mother courage.

I don't pretend to be an ordinary housewife.

I sweat real sweat and I shake real shakes.

I left home as soon as I could, when I was 18. I thought I was in love and got married - the press called it Prince Charming and Cinderella. He was a Hilton so I was the poor little Cinderella. And when I got a divorce nine months later I never told the court why, but he was cruel.

I've always sung in the shower. Now I make the stage a mental shower in order not to get too uptight and enjoy it.

On the film where I didn't get along with the director, I just decided to not speak to him.

It's amazing the gymnastics you can do when you don't want to do something. How you can force yourself against all the forces of nature. I threw myself backward.

To me, acting is a matter of absolute concentration. You can laugh and giggle with your friends up to the minute the director says, "Action!" Then you snap your mind into shape and into the character that you're playing and relate to the people that you're acting with and forget everybody else that you've been joking with.

Acting is fun. It's not my whole life. It's not my entire being. It's secondary to my life. My life is primary. I'm running in the primary, as you know.

I've never had an acting lesson. I've never been given techniques. Everything I've done is invented. I just sort of found out [how to do it].

I have been supremely lucky in my life in that I have known great love, and of course I am the temporary custodian of some incredible and beautiful things.

I hate the idea of always having to interpret other people's ideas and thoughts and words, because I'm very independent and, I guess, a free thinker.

I have never wanted to be a queen! Cleopatra was a role, and I am an actor, so it was fun to play one, but it's not real.

I used to think that drinking would help my shyness, but all it did was exaggerate all the negative qualities.

You can always avert throwing yourself in front of an oncoming train. There is something that just pulls you away - and it has pulled me away, because I'm not dead yet - just at the brink of impact. Sometimes I have been really grazed by that train.

I love going to rock concerts, I love to lose myself in that vast wave of rhythm and body heat and get on the same vibe.

A "name" no longer carries a film. People used to go to the cinema to see a "John Wayne film." And you don't have that thing happening now except in the rock world, which has taken the event out of movies.

I've always preferred animals to little girls or boys. I had my first horse - actually it was a Newfoundland pony - when I was three, and I loved riding, without anyone shackling me - riding bareback as fast as I could.

I never planned to acquire a lot of jewels or a lot of husbands. For me, life happened, just as it does for anyone else.

I don't have a set pattern. I take things as they come. Usually with a great amount of relish. I just lay back and wait for it to happen. And it usually does.

Sometimes I think we know too much about our idols and that spoils the dream.

I like the connection with fans and people who have been supportive of me. And I love the idea of real feedback and a two-way street, which is very, very modern.

I find it rather tedious working with some actors who have to go into a corner and bounce up and down, shake their hands and arms, saying to the director, "Just a second - I'll be ready in a few minutes, " while all the other actors are waiting around to get in. Then they say, "OK! I'm ready now." And then they come on and do it exactly the same way they've done it in rehearsal.

I would totally lose myself in the music and be a gypsy. I would go wherever I wanted to in my head - wherever the music took me. My body followed.

I always wanted to have a fragrance, and I always wanted to be able to connect with people in ways other than through film.

Just in case you get pneumonia or die. The dangerous bits are always the last days of shooting.

Something always made me save myself. Either the Betty Ford Center or going onstage to perform in the theater when many people didn't think I could do it.

I hate myself on the screen. I want to die ... my voice is either too high or too gravelly. I want to dive under the carpet.... I'd love to be tall and willowy ... I'm short.

Without homosexuals there'd be no Hollywood.

I believe in the difference between men and women. In fact, I embrace the difference.

You can't cry on a diamond's shoulder, and diamonds won't keep you warm at night, but they're sure fun when the sun shines.

I find vocabulary to be a great drawback.

I don't have a short temper, I just have a quick reaction to bullshit

I never tried to act until A Place in the Sun.

This is a book that respects kids and their ideas. And in that regard, it places Chasing Vermeer in the tradition of classic favorites fondly recalled from our own childhoods.

On Mother's Day: It's just a rip-off, to tell the truth, a chance to sell my perfume and other things that ladies like.

I've been married too many times. How terrible to change children's affiliations, their affections - to give them the insecurity of placing their trust in someone when maybe that someone won't be there next year.

You can't choose between right and wrong by taking a census.

I feel like 45. I don't look bad for someone my age, with my history of illnesses and operations and all those anesthetics. When they knock you out, it gives you time to catch up on your beauty sleep.

When you're older, you'll appreciate the advantages of sleeping alone.

... there is no deodorant like success.

When women stops blushing, she has lost the most powerful weapon of charm.

Acting is, to me now, artificial. Seeing people suffer is real. It couldn't be more real. Some people don't like to look at it in the face because it's painful. But if nobody does, then nothing gets done.

I'm not worried about dying. I consult with God, my maker. And I don't have a lot of problems to work out. I'm pretty squared anyway.

The public me, the one named Elizabeth Taylor, has become a lot of hokum and fabrication - a bunch of drivel - and I find her slightly revolting.

There's still so much more to do. I can't sit back and be complacent, and none of us should be. I get around now in a wheelchair, but I get around.

Why shouldn't gay people be able to live as open and freely as everybody else? What it comes down to, ultimately, is love. How can anything bad come out of love? The bad stuff comes out of mistrust, misunderstanding and, God knows, from hate and from ignorance.

Marilyn Monroe seemed to have a kind of unconscious glow about her physical self that was innocent, like a child. When she posed nude, it was 'Gee, I am kind of, you know, sort of dishy,' like she enjoyed it without being egotistical.

Judaism had absolutely nothing to do with my past marriage to Mike [Todd] or my upcoming marriage to Eddie Fisher, both of whom were Jewish. It was something I had wanted to do for a long time.

The ups and downs, the problems and stress, along with all the happiness, have given me optimism and hope because I am living proof of survival.

When I'm not with the one I love, I love the one I'm with.

John Wayne is as tough as an old nut and as soft as a yellow ribbon.

Clark Gable was the epitome of the movie star - so romantic, such bearing, such friendliness.

How can money be the root of all evil when shopping is the cure for all sadness?

Richard is a very sexy man. He's got that sort of jungle essence that one can sense." (on Richard Burton)

I have the emotions of a child in the body of a woman. I was rushed into womanhood for the movies. It caused me long moments of unhappiness and doubt.

I wear perfume even when I’m alone

All I see in the mirror every morning is a face that needs washing.

Oh, I love red. I'm very loyal to my colors. I love violet.

My forties are the best time I have ever gone through.

I don't love acting; I love chocolate.

I do enjoy life, I really do. Especially if I wake up the next day.

When you're fat, the world is divided into two groups - people who bug you and people who leave you alone. The funny thing is, supporters and saboteurs exist in either camp.

Seems like we always spend the best part of our time...just saying goodbye.

I DON'T LIKE MY VOICE. I DON'T LIKE THE WAY I LOOK. I DON'T LIKE THE WAY I MOVE. I DON'T LIKE THE WAY I ACT. I MEAN, PERIOD. SO, YOU KNOW, I DON'T LIKE MYSELF.

Every breath you take today should be with someone else in mind...

A belly laugh increases the ability of your immune system to fight infections.

Why shouldn't gay people be allowed to be able to marry? Those against gay marriages say marriage should only be between a man and a woman. God, I of all people know that doesn't always work!

I want it all quickly 'cause I don't want God to stop and think and wonder if I'm getting more than my share.

Many in Hollywood viewed the public persona of the young Debbie Reynolds as demure and vulnerable to be a complete facade. Pianist Oscar Levant once quipped, "She's as wistful as an iron factory."

Originally, we were going to set up a cappuccino bar in the showroom, but we've been so busy, ... We decided when we're old and grey, we're going to set up a coffee shop, and we formed the company about 18 months ago when we thought of the name. It's going to be TLC - Tastes Like Chocolate.

Humility, never me; it is a characteristic I expect to find in other people.

I mean, how many young women get a set of rubies just for doing something wholesome like swimming laps? Or win a diamond ring at ping pong with their husband? Well, I did, and for all of these memories and the people in my life I feel blessed.

Thanks Darling for the beautiful flowers and all the prayers. Now can you just get my puppy past security?

Everything was handed to me - looks, fame, wealth, honour, love. I rarely had to fight for anything

It's not the having, it's the getting.

What do you expect me to do? Sleep alone?