It's necessary to have an energy that carries you forward. You need the will to live, to have a great curiosity. To look for the best in life, to find new interests.

It [winning Oscar] is the most important event in the career of an actor, an extraordinary moment, beautiful. Some people live their whole life just to win an Oscar.

I was so skinny, they gave me the nickname stechetto - the stick. I was tall, thin, ugly and dark like an Arab girl. I looked strange. All eyes. No flesh on my bones.

Many people think they want things, but they don't really have the strength, the discipline. They are weak. I believe that you get what you want if you want it badly enough.

[William] Klein has eyes like a knife. He is ruthless and outrageous but never mean - he is tender and funny and violent - and, I'm sure, really in love with our crazy Rome.

When you find yourself a mom, you will be by no means seriously by itself with your ideas. A mother usually should think twice, once for herself and once for her boy or girl.

The first woman was created from the rib of a man. She was not made from his head to top him, nor from his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal to him.

Be careful about what you eat because otherwise you get fat! Do you like to be fat? Eat very, very, very little things. Almost starve, but I don't starve, because I eat very much.

I think the quality of sexiness comes from within. It is something that is in you or it isn't and it really doesn't have much to do with breasts or thighs or the pout of your lips.

I don't go for films that exalt violence. I don't want them in my house. Sometimes my children see them. But nowadays they do it so truthfully and with so much passion that you are shocked.

If you don't have the roots somewhere, it's very difficult for people to work with you. Because you are a different person from them. They don't know you, really. They don't know how you feel.

You must all, somewhere deep in your hearts, believe that you have a special beauty that is like no other and that is so valuable that you must not abandon it. Indeed, you must learn to cherish it.

I have to say that since my mother died, I am not the same person anymore. My life has changed a great deal because it's really unbearable to think you can't see her anymore or talk to her anymore.

After all these years, I am still involved in the process of self-discovery. It's better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe. Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.

I don't like to run. I don't like to jump up and down. Being a big girl and having a bosom, I injure myself! It upsets me, I have to hold my two things. I just can't jog, there's something in the way.

There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.

Learn to use your brains as deftly as your powder box, and then, perhaps, powder box you will not need ... Know smart women men say beautiful - eyes snatched from the crowd and do not forget just charming.

There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.

Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go so much further than people with vastly superior talent.

I've never tried to block out the memories of the past, even though some are painful. I don't understand people who hide from their past. Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now.

And as I walk round the park I always think, 'Maybe round the corner I am going to find something beautiful.' I always think positively. It is very rare that you find me in a mood that is sad or melancholic.

I'm not talking so much about sex - after you've seen sex in a picture, what else can happen - but violence is very bad. People think these are things you are allowed to do. I think they should be forbidden.

Be honest about what you can get. To make a sacrifice and to get what you want you need to be very certain. In other words: always think about your objective, have a clear goal and commit to it from the heart.

If you are a professional actor who has pride in his work, then the judgment of your peers should be important to you. I treasure each and every award I have ever received - and my Oscar is in a place of honor.

The mirror of your health is your skin. If you drink, it shows in your face; if you eat the wrong foods, you have pimples. If you take care of your food and you lead a healthy life, your skin will look wonderful.

I think, in our life I think that when you are an actor, when you are a producer, you have to be very discreet about your personal life, and you have to be closed in, in harmony and in affection and in everything.

I hated my father all my life but in his final days I forgave him for all the suffering he caused us. As you grow older, marry, and have children of you own, you learn and forget. I do not forget easily, but I do forgive.

Is my mother my friend? I would have to say, first of all she is my Mother, with a capital 'M'; she's something sacred to me. I love her dearly...yes, she is also a good friend, someone I can talk openly with if I want to.

I'm a very shy person, and I never tried to do theater. I've been asked many, many times by the most incredible authors in America to do theater. And I always said no, not knowing what it is to be on the stage and to do theater.

I wake up very early every morning and I have my coffee at 6:30. If it comes at 6:35, I'm very upset. I don't say anything but I'm upset because I'm so punctual in doing things, that if I lose five minutes I have to rush everything.

Though poor and anxious to work, I refused to alter anything. They would take me as I looked or not at all.... Eventually I profited by looking like myself and not like what was fashionable years ago with certain film technicians in Rome.

I exist only because inside of me and above all else I am only and above all a Neapolitan. Naples exists inside of me, and always will. Fortunately for me there is this treasure that I have inside of me and, when I need it, then I pull it out.

Isn't it wonderful to be alive? You know, you can forget all about it. Then suddenly you remember, and think of all the things you can do. Here I am. I can walk around. I can talk. I can see things and remember things. I am alive. How wonderful!

At this moment, everyone is in crisis, not only in Italy but all over Europe. Only in America do they make films that are successful all over the world. In Europe, production is quite poor. We have three or four or five films, which is not enough.

No press conference announcing a last film. I'd just steal away. Best way because, if by chance after two or three years something interesting comes up, I would not - like Sinatra - have to say: 'Well, I've thought it over and decided to come back.'

When I was a child, fear was common to my life - fear of having nothing to eat, fear of the other children taunting me at school because I was illegitimate, and particularly fear of the big bombers appearing overhead and dropping their lethal bursts from the sky.

I do not know if I really am a big star. And in fact that is not the most important thing for me. What counts in life is to bring about more of your own dreams. In such a way that your life becomes like a fairy tale. This is what has happened to me, it is just like that.

I like to cook for my friends. It is an act of love because in cooking you can create so many plates and recipes, if you know how to - otherwise you make a mess - but I like it because it's like a ceremony. You cook for your friends and after, you drink wine and play cards.

My mother taught me the most important principles, to be determined in life, to be disciplined, to be able to understand that there are some things that you can't do and other things you have to do, that you always have to be surrounded by love, that you have to be understanding.

I think for the women of today, because we work and go around a lot, Armani is ideal - simple and elegant at the same time. It's not eccentric, and everything he does is very subtle. For the evening, I like Gianfranco Ferre. There's a lot of fantasy and creativity in his clothes.

I do 45 minutes a day of stretching and abdominals and I lift light weights of half a kilo. Otherwise, if you strain your muscles, then you have to be quiet and stay without any exercise for a long time. I do heavier weights gradually. I'm going to become Superwoman with oil on my muscles!

I can't tell you that I like getting older, but I think I can cope with it because everybody gets older. Sometimes it's a little upsetting because time goes by and you want to do more and you have to accept life for what it is and find some new motivation that gives you drive and enthusiasm.

True happiness is impossible without solitude.... I need solitude in my life as I need food and drink and the laughter of little children. Extravagant though it may sound, solitude is the filter of my soul. It nourishes me, and rejuvenates me. Left alone, I discovered that I keep myself good company.

I think what you have inside reflects very much in your face, in your expression. If you can find a kind of equilibrium in life, you never really get old, because you have that kind of ingenuity and innocence inside that gives you that brightness and that glint in your eye that generally, getting older, you lose.

I was not intrigued with the accouterments of success and fame, the furs, jewels, expensive automobiles and mansions... I can assure you that these things were not on my mind when I sat spellbound in that Pozzuoli movie house. It was what these performers on the screen were doing, not what they received for doing it.

I was blessed with a sense of my own destiny. I have never sold myself short. I have never judged myself by other people's standards. I have always expected a great deal of myself, and if I fail, I fail myself. So failure or reversal does not bring out resentment in me because I cannot blame others for any misfortune that befalls me.

Being an actress, you are accustomed to learn to do so many things... You learn how to dry your hair, curl your hair and do your nails. Sometimes, just for fun, I have someone come in to do my nails, but I like to do them three times a week. If I went out to have them done, then I would spend my life at the hairdresser's and that I can't afford.

You have to believe in marriage and you have to believe in a relationship between two people. If you really think in your life that you have found the right person, you have to stick to it, even though there are ups and downs. If you really believe in your union, you have to nourish it and work for it, then you can really spend your life together forever.

Sometimes you feel a need to express yourself, and there is no better way than to go to places where people need everything. It's dramatic, it's tragic. You just can't understand why, in the world of today, there are still things like that. The images you see on TV kill you. Of course when you are there (at these trouble spots) you can't turn off the TV. You are face-to-face with reality.

Getting ahead in a difficult profession - singing, acting, writing, whatever requires avid faith in yourself. You must be able to sustain yourself against staggering blows and unfair reversals. When I think back to those first couple of years in Rome, those endless rejections, without a glimmer of encouragement from anyone, all those failed screen tests, and yet I never let my desire slide away from me, my belief in myself and what I felt I could achieve.

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