Greta Garbo was also known as Greta Lovisa Gustafsson (18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990) was a Swedish film actress during the 1920s and 1930s. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Garbo fifth on its list of the greatest female stars of classic Hollywood cinema. Here is the collection of some of the best Greta Garbo quotes on life, movies, and marriage.
Famous Greta Garbo Quotes
- “I never said, ‘I want to be alone.’ I only said ‘I want to be let alone!’ There is all the difference.” – Greta Garbo
- “I don’t like writers. They’re dangerous people.” – Greta Garbo
- “The story of my life is about back entrances, side doors, secret elevators and other ways of getting in and out of places so that people won’t bother me.” – Greta Garbo
- “I don’t want to be a silly temptress. I cannot see any sense in getting dressed up and doing nothing but tempting men in pictures.” – Greta Garbo
- “There are some who want to get married and others who don’t. I have never had an impulse to go to the altar. I am a difficult person to lead.” – Greta Garbo
- “You don’t have to be married to have a good friend as your partner for life.” – Greta Garbo
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“I live like a monk: with one toothbrush, one cake of soap, and a pot of cream.” – Greta Garbo
- “I want to be alone.” – Greta Garbo
- “I’m tired and nervous and I’m in America. Here you don’t know that you live.” – Greta Garbo
- “All alike, you men. You only want the satisfaction of being through with us first, that’s all. So far I’ve had the good fortune of beating you to it. So I am heartless.” – Greta Garbo
- “Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.” – Greta Garbo
- “It’s midnight. One half of Paris is making love to the other half.” – Greta Garbo
- “I don’t like to talk to people, because I can’t express myself satisfactorily. I don’t say the things I mean.” – Greta Garbo
- “It is bitter to think of one’s best years disappearing in this unpolished country.” – Greta Garbo
- “I never said, ‘I want to be alone.’ I only said, ‘I want to be left alone.’ There is all the difference.” – Greta Garbo
- “If you are blessed, you are blessed, whether you are married or single.” – Greta Garbo
- “There are many things in your heart you can never tell to another person. They are you, your private joys and sorrows, and you can never tell them. You cheapen yourself, the inside of yourself, when you tell them.” – Greta Garbo
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“I have made enough faces.” – Greta Garbo
- “I wish I were supernaturally strong so I could put right everything that is wrong.” – Greta Garbo
- “If only those who dream about Hollywood knew how difficult it all is.” – Greta Garbo
- “I smoke all the time, one after the other.” – Greta Garbo
- “I’m a completely worthless woman and no man should risk his life for me.” – Greta Garbo
- “Your joys and sorrows. You can never tell them. You cheapen the inside of yourself if you do tell them.” – Greta Garbo
- “How can one change one’s entire life and build a new one on one moment of love? And yet, that’s what you make me want to close my eyes and do.” – Greta Garbo
- “I’ve always wanted two lives – one for the movies, one for myself.” – Greta Garbo
- “Why haven’t I got a husband and children?” mused Greta Garbo to the Dutchess of Windsor, “I never met a man I could marry.” – Greta Garbo
- “This is where I have wasted the best years of my life.” – Greta Garbo
- “I always wanted to do my best. I got nothing free—I had to work hard.” – Greta Garbo
- “It’s difficult in Hollywood to be allowed to try anything. It’s all a terrible compromise. There is no time for art. All that matters is what they call box office.” – Greta Garbo
- “Life would be so wonderful if we only knew what to do with it.” – Greta Garbo
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“Every one of us lives this life just once, if we are honest, to live once is enough.” – Greta Garbo
- “My talents fall within definite limitations. I am not as versatile as an actress as some think.” – Greta Garbo
- “I’m afraid of NOTHING except being bored!” – Greta Garbo
- “I’m not always sincere. One can’t be in this world, you know.” – Greta Garbo
- “I like the sea: we understand one another. It is always yearning, sighing for something it cannot have; and so am I.” – Greta Garbo
- “There is no one who would have me – I can’t cook.” – Greta Garbo
- “Except physically, we know little more about Garbo than we know about Shakespeare.” – Greta Garbo
- “Why should you care for a woman like me? I’m always nervous or sick, or sad or too gay.” – Greta Garbo
- “I was always sad as a child, for as long as I can think back. I hated crowds of people, and used to sit in a corner by myself, just thinking.” – Greta Garbo
- “There seems to be a law that governs all our actions so I never make plans.” – Greta Garbo
- “Love is a romantic designation for a most ordinary biological process-or, shall we say, chemical-process … a lot of nonsense is talked and written about it.” – Greta Garbo
- “Perhaps it’s better if I live in your heart, where the world can’t see me. If I’m dead, there will be no stain on our love.” – Greta Garbo
- “Being a movie star, and this applies to all of them, means being looked at from every possible direction. You are never left at peace, you’re just fair game.” – Greta Garbo
- “Is there anything better than to be longing for something, when you know it is within reach?” – Greta Garbo
- “When one has not long to live, why shouldn’t one have fancies?” – Greta Garbo
