Top 40 Ava Gardner Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “When I’m old and gray, I want to have a house by the sea. And paint. With a lot of wonderful chums, good music, and booze around. And a damn good kitchen to cook in.”

— Ava Gardner

2. “Deep down, I’m pretty superficial.”

— Ava Gardner

3. “Fame gives you everything you never wanted.”

— Ava Gardner

4. “Love is nothing but a pain in the ass.”

— Ava Gardner

5. “I do everything for a reason. Most of the time the reason is money.”

— Ava Gardner

6. “I wish to live to 150 years old, but the day I die, I wish it to be with a cigarette in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other.”

— Ava Gardner

7. “I haven’t taken an overdose of sleeping pills and called my agent. I haven’t been in jail, and I don’t go running to the psychiatrist every two minutes. That’s something of an accomplishment these days.”

— Ava Gardner

8. “He will always be my Sir Galahad.”

— Ava Gardner

9. “Elizabeth Taylor is not beautiful, she is pretty – I was beautiful.”

— Ava Gardner

10. “Doing nothing feels like floating on warm water to me. Delightful, perfect.”

— Ava Gardner

11. “When I lose my temper, honey, you can’t find it any place.”

— Ava Gardner

12. “Petting is the study of the anatomy in braille.”

— Ava Gardner

13. “If I had my life to live over again, I’d live it the same way. Maybe a few changes here or there, but nothing special. The truth is, honey, I’ve enjoyed my life. I’ve had a hell of a good time.”

— Ava Gardner

14. “Women’s liberation as a movement makes some valid points. But in the final analysis, it doesn’t matter who wears the pants – as long as there’s money in the pockets.”

— Ava Gardner

15. “The truth is that the only time I’m happy is when I’m doing absolutely nothing. I don’t understand people who like to work and talk about it like it was some sort of goddamn duty. Doing nothing feel like floating on warm water to me. Delightful, perfect.”

— Ava Gardner

16. “It’s a pity nobody believes in simple lust anymore.”

— Ava Gardner

17. “I think the main reason my marriages failed is that I always loved too well but never wisely.”

— Ava Gardner

18. “Sing me not a song; let me hear your recital of veneration and respect; this I will listen to over and over when I share your need of pleasing.”

— Ava Gardner

19. “I was never an actress – none of us kids at Metro were. We were just good to look at.”

— Ava Gardner

20. “God knows I’ve got so many frailties myself, I ought to be able to understand and forgive them in others. But I don’t.”

— Ava Gardner

21. “I hate cheating. I won’t put up with it. I don’t do it myself.”

— Ava Gardner

22. “Fame and fortune does not mean anything if you don’t have a happy home.”

— Ava Gardner

23. “Although no one believes me, I have always been a country girl and still have a country girl’s values.”

— Ava Gardner

24. “For the loot, honey, for the loot.”

— Ava Gardner

25. “I don’t mind growing old. If I have to go before my time, this is how I’ll go – cigarette in one hand, glass of scotch in the other.”

— Ava Gardner

26. “Oh, what the hell did I know? I went to the set the first day in full makeup and the director told me to take it off. So I did the film without makeup. I had nothing to do with anything I did. I never understood why I was so famous.”

— Ava Gardner

27. “I’ve certainly never taken the care of myself that I should have. On the contrary. I’ve done a lot of late nights without enough sleep and all that. But I’ve had fun. Whatever wrinkles are there, I’ve enjoyed getting them.”

— Ava Gardner

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28. “Because I was promoted as a sort of a siren and played all those sexy broads, people made the mistake of thinking I was like that off the screen. They couldn’t have been more wrong.”

— Ava Gardner

29. “I was lazy. I would have been a hell of a lot better actress had I taken it more seriously. I never had the proper respect for acting. Quite often, I learned my lines on the way to the studio.”

— Ava Gardner

30. “The truth is, honey, I’ve enjoyed my life. I’ve had a hell of a good time.”

— Ava Gardner

31. “After my screen test, the director clapped his hands gleefully and yelled: “She can’t talk! She can’t act! She’s sensational!””

— Ava Gardner

32. “Maybe, in the final analysis, they saw me as something I wasn’t and I tried to turn them into something they could never be. I loved them all but maybe I never understood any of them. I don’t think they understood me.”

— Ava Gardner

33. “What I’d really like to say about stardom is that it gave me everything I never wanted.”

— Ava Gardner

34. “So this was where lust was satisfied. If I’d been an old-time miner I’d have asked for my gold nugget back.”

— Ava Gardner

35. “In one scene, when I was supposed to say, “In a pig’s eye you are,” what came out was, “In a pig’s ass you are.” Old habits die awfully hard.”

— Ava Gardner

36. “I am deeply superficial.”

— Ava Gardner

37. “I suffered, I really suffered, with all three of my husbands. And I tried damn hard with all three, starting each marriage certain that it was going to last until the end of my life. Yet none of them lasted more than a year or two.”

— Ava Gardner

38. “I have only one rule in acting – trust the director and give him heart and soul.”

— Ava Gardner

39. “All I have going is my looks. When my beauty goes, I’m through.”

— Ava Gardner

40. “When you have to face up to the fact that marriage to the man you love is really over, that’s very tough, sheer agony. In that kind of harrowing situation, I always go away and cut myself off from the world. Also, I sober up immediately when there is genuine bad news in my life; I never face it with alcohol in my brain. I just rented a house in Palm Springs and sat there and just suffered for a couple of weeks. I suffered there until I was strong enough to face it.”

— Ava Gardner

41. “And I won ’em back fair and square. So what are you going to do about it? Want to fight? Who wants the first bloody nose?”

— Ava Gardner

42. “And the news got worse. It appeared that there was this whole other person Jesus Christ whose birthday a lot of people tended to confuse with mine. I was personally outraged. It was a long time before I forgave the Lord for that.”

— Ava Gardner

43. “I either write the book or sell the jewels. And I’m kinda sentimental about the jewels.”

— Ava Gardner