- [on Burt Reynolds]: I have always said Burt's sensitivity and generosity were in great measure responsible for my Academy Award nomination for Starting Over (1979).
- ...Hollywood has been vulgarized, mostly by television, which vulgarizes everything.
- I may not be the greatest actress but I've become the greatest at screen orgasms. Ten seconds of heavy breathing, roll your head from side to side, simulate a slight asthma attack and die a little.
- On her less-than voluptuous figure: I'd LIKE to have boobs.
- People see you as an object, not as a person, and they project a set of expectations onto you. People who don't have it think beauty is a blessing, but actually it sets you apart.
- [on Elliott Gould] He was the first person to teach me to enjoy acting. He never throws a tantrum, never gets into a snit.
- [on Gene Hackman] When acting is done well it is an extraordinary craft, and there are some who approach it like a job. It is breathtaking and inspiring to see someone like Gene Hackman, who is absolutely unpretentious and has never gone through the imbecilities and self-aggrandizement of other actors.
- [on Lee Marvin] He was everything I hoped and feared he would be -- as unpredictable, honest, intimidating and inflammable as I had imagined. He is unusually interesting in the way that was more interesting than peace. I thought if I got out of there merely disfigured I'd be lucky.
- There are moments when I perceive us as being on the brink of another dark age, a media blitzkrieg of mindlessness.
- It takes a long time to grow up. Longer than they tell you.
- Living in L.A. is not like having a date on Saturday night.
- I find it endlessly fascinating that a reserved man, a man who had difficulty expressing his feelings, fell into the profession of a ventriloquist on radio. And that the person he created was this devil-may-care, no-holds-barred, take-no-prisoners dummy. It was the dummy that wouldn't die. All the fan mail initially went to Charlie. And Edgar wasn't really welcome at parties unless Charlie was with him. It was totally surreal.
- [on doing love scenes] Suddenly, you wind up in bed with a guy on top of you that you wouldn't want to share a cab with.
- Acting has never done anything for me except encourage my vanity and provoke my arrogance.
- [observation, 2015] Let me just come right out and say it. I am fat. I live to eat. None of this 'eatin' to live' stuff for me. No carb is safe - no fat either. I crave cookies - all the thing that dilate my pupils.
- It's very hard to have a marriage, a child and a career. I believe in putting the child first, quite frankly. That may be a politically incorrect thing to say, but that's how I feel about it.
- [on hosting 'Saturday Night Live'] It was like being shot out of a cannon the first time I did the show. It's the purest, most exhilarating serum of terror. Lorne Michaels said that the expression in my eyes was like Patty Hearst when the Symbionese Liberation Army rang her doorbell. You just have to hang on for dear life. It's brilliantly run, but it's a miracle that the show could have ever existed, the demands are so insane.
- [on perhaps being a perceived model for single mothers] We were very aware that the choice we were making was very loaded, and we discussed it at great depth. But 'Murphy' was very much a show for a slice of highly-educated aware people. So I don't take responsibility for the rise in single motherhood among uneducated women.
- [on being considered beautiful] You have to work a little harder to find out who's underneath your face. You have to make people comfortable with you. Of course, I'm grateful beyond words that I had it, but beauty's very often the elephant in the room, and you're the elephant handler.
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