Best 146 quotes of Shirley Maclaine on MyQuotes

I make my mistakes in public.

I'm an artist, therefore I think I am sensitive to human pain.

I'm an expert in hookers. I'm an expert in doormats. I'm an expert in victims. They were the best parts. And when I woke up--sociologically, politically, and creatively--I could no longer take those parts and look in the mirror.

I'm a peaceful person once work ethic is established. If people are around me and whatever I'm doing is efficient, then I'm extremely peaceful.

I mean, I'm just speaking of my own experiences and my own desires, and it's a kind of a childlike wonder that could really possibly speculate on other dimensions.

I'm not unaware of how I'm perceived, I just don't care about it. Unless I really hurt someone's feelings. I care about that.

I'm too direct and too unsparingly impatient.

I'm very aware, but I'm very naïve. When you are really naïve and expecting safety and expecting the best, you don't feel you're taking risks. You can get smacked a little, but usually it works out pretty well. I would say that, as much as you can instill your open-minded naivety, if you're basically open minded, then you can do damn near anything.

I'm very involved with learning to be self-sufficient.

In order to get to the fruit of the tree, you have to go out on a limb.

In some ways, America has grown up to be a masterpiece of self-concern.

In terms of my life, I guess I want to share whatever I've learned really, which is basically one thing: know yourself, look for yourself, know what to look for, cherish it, be honest, be authentic, even if it hurts your feelings. That's not bad.

I realized that if what we call human nature can be changed, then absolutely anything is possible. From that moment my life changed.

I think in the end we all know that our best friend is ourselves. We are born alone and we die alone. That's the journey.

I think male actors get confused by their own vanity.

I think materialism has trumped a lot of stuff, but I don't think it has trumped the heart, especially when it comes to (a person's) last thought.

I think of life itself now as a wonderful play that I've written for myself, and so my purpose is to have the utmost fun playing my part.

I think the hill one has to trudge in order to understand a man's baggage is more of a trek than I'd like to take right now.

I think the world is in the mess it's in because we are spiritually ignorant.

I think when I was in my early twenties and middle twenties I didn't even know I wasn't living up to my potential. A couple of friends told me I wasn't and told me to get my act together, and it made a huge impact on me.

I thought playing an angel would be very good for my image.

I've been through so much of my own self-search that I'm not as consumed with who I am as I used to be.

I've always thought I was looking for myself whenever I traveled. Like a journey anywhere was really a journey through myself.

I've gotten crankier in my old age.

I want women to be liberated and still be able to have a nice ass and shake it.

I was afraid I would get the Oscar for 'Irma La Douce' because it was popular. But I didn't want to because I didn't really think it was that good.

I was always a character actress and never a sex symbol. Even when I was the leading lady, I was a character actor.

I watched my head rolling on the floor. It landed face up and a big tear came out of one eye.

I would say the biggest risk I always take is going in front of a live audience. There's nothing more risky to do. You have to really leave yourself open to your own authenticity, and you find that out pretty quick.

Maybe the tragedy of the human race was that we had forgotten that we are each divine.

Melt their weapons, melt their hearts, melt their anger with love.

Movie makers now choose profit over vision.

My first few weeks in New York were an initiation into the kingdom of guts.

My gift is that I'm not beautiful. My career was never about looks. It's about health and being in good shape.

Never trust a man when he's in love, drunk, or running for office.

New York is the perfect town for getting over a disappointment, a loss, or a broken heart.

New York was the only city I knew in the world where you could be desperately lonely at nine in the morning, crossing the street for a bagel at Gristede's, and find that seven hours later you were drinking Irish coffee at P.J. Clarke's with all the friends you had inherited along the way.

Nothing should be permanent except struggle with the dark side within ourselves.

Of course I'm schooled in the old school method: taking what I think the director wants, then reworking it through my own brain and heart.

Of course, we're all a mass of contradictions.

Once you get your own family clear in your head, whatever your problems are with it. You're better prepared for being an adult in the world.

One can become as intellectually arrogant about spirituality as about empirical science.

...One individual is his or her own best teacher, and no other idol or false image should be worshiped or adored because the God we are all seeking lies inside oneself, not outside.

On things she had to pack before leaving her home in advance of a forest fire, 1996. Childhood pictures and pictures of my life. Do you know how many pictures that is? Not just this life; I have pictures from 13,000 lives.

People think I'm nuts.

Prayer is speaking to God. Meditation is listening to God. Trust tranquility.

Remember, I come from such an excessively overdone, red-carpet place called Hollywood. So I'm used to people blowing up their success in ways that are far above and beyond the truth.

Sex is hardly ever just about sex.

Someday change will be accepted as life itself.

Someday perhaps change will occur when times are ready for it instead of always when it is too late. Someday change will be accepted as life itself.