Ava Quotes

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.

If your dream only includes you, it's too small.

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.

Be passionate and move forward with gusto every single hour of every single day until you reach your goal.

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.

Figure out what you need to do to be the heroine of your own story.

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.

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

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

Although no one believes me, I have always been a country girl and still have a country girl's values

Don't wait for permission to do something creative.

If you're doing something outside of dominant culture there's not an easy place for you. You will have to do it yourself.

Elizabeth Taylor is not beautiful, she is pretty—I was beautiful.

When you're in your lane, there's no traffic.

What I'd really like to say about stardom is that it gave me everything I never wanted.

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.

We have to find new ways to work without permission, new ways to turn corners and go through doors that are closed off to us to create our own audiences and our own material independently.

When I lose my temper, honey, you can't find it any place.

I've passed along some advice that Oprah [Winfrey] gave to me: When something bad is happening, it's not happening to you; it's happening for you.

Petting is the study of the anatomy in braille.

Stop asking, start doing.

I either write the book or sell the jewels. And I'm kinda sentimental about the jewels.

I have only one rule in acting - trust the director and give him heart and soul.

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

Fame gives you everything you never wanted.

All I have going is my looks. When my beauty goes, I'm through.

I want to remember it all, the good times and the bad times, the late nights, the boozing, the dancing into dawns, and all the great and not-so-great people I met and loved in those years.

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

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

I am deeply superficial.

If your work is solid, it really doesn't matter what people you know because good work starts to rise to the top.

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

Fame and fortune does not mean anything if you don't have a happy home.

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.

Because my mom always told me that I could. From a very early age, I felt comfortable leading.

Hollywood - that's a place where love is viewed both pragmatically and philosophically in the saying, 'Tis better to have loved and divorced than never to have had any publicity at all.

The traditional ways to make a film, the traditional ways to share a film, have all collapsed. There are no gatekeepers, per se, any more, and anything can be done. Truly, I feel that.

I make films about Black women and it doesn't mean that you can't see them as a Black man, doesn't mean that he can't see them as a white man or she can't see them as a white woman.

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

If you have the ability to do something, you should do it.

I really admire Werner Herzog and Spike Lee. They're amazing documentarians. If you took away all the narratives, they'd just be amazing documentarians.

We're a new world and it's not pretty. It's going to be for the brave to figure out how to survive in this.

Hollywood needs more women directors, and Mama Ava needs a carafe and a half of that sweet vino divino.

I must have seen more sunrises than any other actress in the history of Hollywood.

I didn't go to film school. I got my education on the set as a niche publicist in the film industry.

For the loot, honey, for the loot.

He will always be my Sir Galahad.

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

When I'm marketing a film, whether its mine or someone else's, I work with a great deal of strategy and elbow grease until the job is done.

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.