Charles Laughton signed me to my first movie contract at 17. He later asked my parents if he could adopt me.

Comedy is difficult, especially slapstick. The trick is to have fun while you are performing it.

When I was young, I was told that I had a sulky, pouty face.

I spent a great deal of time with Che Guevara while I was in Havana. I believe he was far less a mercenary than he was a freedom fighter.

Lost in a crowd of greats, not a single Oscar. That's showbiz.

I don't remember having a crush on a boy when I was a girl. I don't even remember my first kiss.

The Queen Mary was the most civilized and luxurious way one could travel to America in the late 1930s.

John Candy knew he was going to die. He told me on his 40th birthday. He said, well, Maureen, I'm on borrowed time.

I dainty little lass I wasn't. I looked twice my age until I turned 10 or 11.

I knew that Jamaica Inn was going to make me a star.

Henry Fonda gave me a spanking during a scene in Spencer's Mountain.

We change ideas like neckties.

Those who are unwilling to invest in the future haven't earned one

I met someone who said they'd figured out my genre: "madcap redemption comedy." I'll buy that.

Once I lived in time as a fish in water, breathing it, drinking it, sustained by it. Now I kill time and time kills me.

I'm very happy and being raised Catholic I assume it will end tomorrow. The rug will be pulled out from under me and someone will say, now go to your real job, shoveling poop somewhere.

To hell with reality! I want to die in music, not in reason or in prose.

There is nothing better than getting something in front of an audience in a less stressful setting than previews!

Visions of glory, spare my aching sight! Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul!

Everybody knows how to utter a complaint, but few can express a graceful compliment.

I'm not OK, you're not OK-and that's OK.