I've always been a good mother, but I've always been in show business, and I've been on stage, and I don't bake cookies and I don't stay home.
— Debbie Reynolds
I was raised to think that if you behaved badly with men, you went to hell. I realise now it is puritanical and not very adult.
I wish I could have been more enlightened at 18 and learned more about men because I could have avoided all the traps.
I don't have an agent - I have the William Morris Agency.
You have to believe in yourself.
We slept in the park before we had a house, and eventually we shared a home - my parents, my grandparents and five uncles, my family, all of us - on White Oaks Street by Magnolia Street near the railroad. Those were hard times, but I loved living there.
Hollywood has been an enormous part of my life, as I know it has been for countless fans all over the world.
It's very hard when your child doesn't want to talk to you and you want to talk to them, and you want to touch them, you want to hold them.
I never thought I would live this long.
Music will bring you through... It brought me through.
I think it's one thing to be able to dance, and it's another thing to learn all the wonderful moments of dance because in my day... it was the moving of dance.
We all knew each other in the neighborhood. I loved living in El Paso. I had a wonderful childhood there.
I knew Mrs. Liberace. Lee and I were great friends. I know the whole inside story.
Everything about the studio was enormous. You walked through the gates of iron, and it was palatial looking. The first day, I was introduced to Clark Gable. He said, 'Hello, kid. Welcome to MGM. I'm just leaving.'
In life, I'm like Molly Brown. I've had tough times along the way and gone through experiences that many women have gone through. But I ain't down yet.
I love having my ghosts, and I love having my memories.
Well, one of the things I did was recreate her home in my home.
We were very old-fashioned. My preacher at church told me I could not go in to the movies because it would make me a 'wanton woman.'
I believed that the husband takes care of the family, and the wife takes care of him, and they are true to each other. I know that sounds a romantic illusion, but it can be true.
I was just like Jennifer Aniston with Brad Pitt when he fell in love with Angelina Jolie.
Drama's unhappy, and playing someone unhappy would make me unhappy.
I went to the school of hard knocks.
We were rather poor, but we always had what we needed.
My lifetime dream has been to assemble and preserve the history of the Hollywood film industry.
All of my husbands have robbed me blind.
I loved Fred Astaire's way of dancing. He led you into the dance.
That's what I love about dance. It makes you happy, fully happy.
'The Unsinkable Molly Brown' was my favorite for me to be in because it was all dancing. There were other musicals that I made with Donald O'Connor and Gene Kelly that were wonderful pictures, and we had a lot of fun making them.
I always loved to entertain and show off in front of the neighbors. I would sing and dance at their houses.
I got to sing a wonderful song called 'I Ain't Down Yet.' Well, I ain't.
You just never give up. You do a task to the best of your abilities and beyond.
You don't get there the easy way. If you feel sorry for yourself, and you let yourself go down, you will drown.
I'm going to stay on stage until I drop dead. Then I'm going to have myself stuffed, like Trigger, and I'm going to put me in a museum.
I wanted to get that sense of peace and even boredom that comes with long familiarity.
My mother, Maxine, was married at 16 to my father Raymond, and in 56 years together, he was the only man she ever had.
My first husband ran off with Elizabeth Taylor.
It takes a long time to realize a situation is for real, and then you finally face it.
Manic depressive is a disease.
I don't know fancy big words, because I didn't have a rich mother who sent her to fancy schools.
I always feel, as a mother does, that I protect her. Who will do that when I'm gone?
Gene Kelly was hard on me, but I think he had to be.
I've had to walk through a lot of my tears.
Fred Astaire was my dream dancer.
We didn't have any real proper school. We did not have a place to go to learn to dance and the joy of dancing.
Those were hard times, but I loved living there. I would walk on the tracks, hopping, skipping. I enjoyed the neighborhood, I enjoyed El Paso. I remember being chased by tumbleweeds on windy days; they came up to my neck.
I spent some special years in my hometown of El Paso.
When you were under contract, you did what you were told to do.
Gene Kelly was one of the greatest dancers of all time and a taskmaster. He sought from you the absolute best - and he got it.
The only way to make it through life is to fight.
You all know who she is. There's very little she isn't.
