“A really great reception makes me feel like I have a great big warm heating pad all over me. People en masse have always been wonderful to me. I truly have a great love for an audience, and I used to want to prove it to them by giving them blood.”

“Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.”

“Behind every cloud is another cloud.”

“For it was not into my ear you whispered, but into my heart. It was not my lips you kissed, but my soul.”

“How strange when an illusion dies. It's as though you've lost a child.”

“I believe that the real expression of your religious beliefs is shown in the daily pattern of your life, in what you contribute to your surroundings and what you take away without infringing on the rights of other people.”

“I can live without money, but I cannot live without love.”

“I don't always have to sing a song. There is something besides 'The Man That Got Away' or 'Over the Rainbow' or 'The Trolley Song.' There's a woman. There are three children. There's me! There's a lot of life going here.”

“I think that I have every right to write a book. I think I'm interesting. I have perspective about me.”

“I think there's something peculiar about me that I haven't died. It doesn't make sense but I refuse to die.”

“I try to bring the audience's own drama - tears and laughter they know about - to them.”

“I was always lonesome. The only time I felt accepted or wanted was when I was on stage performing. I guess the stage was my only friend: the only place where I could feel comfortable. It was the only place where I felt equal and safe.”

“I was born at the age of twelve on an MGM lot.”

“I wasn't close to my father, but I wanted to be all my life. He had a funny sense of humor, and he laughed all the time - good and loud, like I do. He was a gay Irish gentleman and very good-looking. And he wanted to be close to me, too, but we never had much time together.”

“If I am a legend, then why am I so lonely?”

“If you have to be in a soap opera try not to get the worst role.”

“In our house, the word of Louis B. Mayer became the law.”

“In the silence of night I have often wished for just a few words of love from one man, rather than the applause of thousands of people.”

“It's lonely and cold on the top... lonely and cold.”

“I've always taken 'The Wizard of Oz' very seriously, you know. I believe in the idea of the rainbow. And I've spent my entire life trying to get over it.”

“I've never looked through a keyhole without finding someone was looking back.”

“I've seen the ticket, and I still can't believe it. When I see the money, I hope I don't hit the floor.”

“There have been times when I have deliberately tried to take my life... I think I must have been crying for some attention.”

“We cast away priceless time in dreams, born of imagination, fed upon illusion, and put to death by reality.”

“When you get to know a lot of people, you make a great discovery. You find that no one group has a monopoly on looks, brains, goodness or anything else. It takes all the people - black and white, Catholic, Jewish and Protestant, recent immigrants and Mayflower descendants - to make up America.”

“You are never so alone as when you are ill on stage. The most nightmarish feeling in the world is suddenly to feel like throwing up in front of four thousand people.”