Top 154 Quotes & Sayings by Rita Moreno - Page 2

I was brought up on animal grease.

I auditioned for 'West Side Story' just like everybody else, and I nearly had a heart attack, because I hadn't danced in about - oh, I don't know, about 15 years.

'America' took at least five days of actual filming.

Elvis was a sweet darling, shy fellow, but he was really boring.

I was always typecast as a Latina.

Most people don't know that dancing auditions, you learn the steps right now.

My mother's feeling about men in general were always a bit of a mystery to me. She had difficulties in Puerto Rico with the men in her life. Her brothers abused her. It's very easy to be judgmental, but more often than not, there are mitigating circumstances, and children are not usually aware of those.

If you saw me in 'The King and I,' I had that angelic, virginal face.

You see a script, and you say, 'Oh, I can play the heck out of that,' talk to your agent, and he says they don't want to see you. That's heartbreaking.

I was the artsy one, and my husband took care of all our finances. It was the Latino way - the man is in charge of the money.

I make a lot of soups and stews at home, and I always have fresh bread with it.

I am a very positive and optimistic person.

My idol when I was a kid was Elizabeth Taylor.

Mellowing has never done much for me. You need to keep moving.

You can wish to have an Oscar someday or some other award, but Life Achievement? You don't see yourself that way.

My best work happened on the stage.

If you're in a business where Latinos only play Indian maidens and what I call 'Conchita Lolita' parts - the little fiery spitfires - you do what you have to do.

Maybe Elvis was inhibited by inbred religious prohibitions or an Oedipal complex, or maybe he simply preferred the thrill of a denied release. Whatever put the brakes on the famous pelvis, it ground to a halt at a certain point, and that was it.

Maybe it's my age, but I know I look good, so I'm not going to look like another person suddenly because I don't have makeup on - same hair, same person.

I sing Broadway stuff in the shower, mostly.

Elvis was really sweet and kind of bashful, but he didn't have a whole lot to say.

Oh, I think Scarlett Johansson is a terrific actress. I think she's just marvelous.

I've always had this image of this strong, sprightly person who is undaunted by anything; on the contrary, I was one of the shyest, most unsure people you ever met in your life. But I have one very specific quality: I'm plucky. I really am. I would say that's a perfect description of my personality.

Is there a grandmother that isn't spunky on television? Is there such a creature?

I never had an easy time making friends in the past, for many reasons. I didn't go into therapy for nothing.

I was a Spanish dancer. I don't mean to put that down, because that was great, too, but nothing like the kind of dancing you had to do in 'West Side Story,' which was called jazz.

If you're going to write about your life, you must write about your life.

I feel like I could go on forever.

You can never fight for a part or can't beg them to do another audition. You can try, but that rarely works.

The one thing I really learned, and learned well, in group therapy was that you don't die if someone doesn't like you.

I was never offered enough, and that's the truth.

Being the house ethnic was destroying my life and my sense of myself, because I had been consigned to play every dusky maiden you have ever seen in your life in movies.

I think Jennifer Lopez is a phenom. And as far as I'm concerned, she's really a very smart businesswoman.

I think Mike Nichols is brilliant, but I think Jerry Robbins was a genius.

Doing 'Life Without Makeup' onstage is what inspired me to do a book in the first place.

I should be a representative for AARP!

Women over 30 are usually somebody's mother in a 'Porky's' movie, being silly and being ridiculed. There's just not a whole lot for them to do. It's just coffee-pouring on a bigger scale.

I think it's important to be reminded that that's what this country is comprised of - people from other countries.

Any character who had dark skin, I got all those parts. I could play a Polynesian, East Indian princess, whatever.

My husband and I were very different: I'm spontaneous and emotional; I'm loud - he was exactly the opposite. But you need to be flexible.

I'm not afraid of color. I like color.

I've always believed that I had talent, even when I felt like a very inferior sort of person, which I spent a lot of time living my life feeling that I wasn't worthy.

I started dancing almost before I could walk.

I think lying is a bad idea. Sooner or later, someone's going to catch you.

You can't, or you shouldn't, be nominated for an Oscar unless you've turned in a performance that's special.

I grew up as a child who felt she was very inferior to everyone else.

I watch 'Singin' in the Rain' at least once a year with my grandchildren, and they just adore it.

You talk about meant to be - oh my goodness, I have never done anything else in my life except be a performer.

When I was a little girl, there was no Variety Latino. When I was a little girl, there was no nothing. There were very few roles for people like myself.

A friend of my mother's, Irene Lopez, was a Spanish dancer. She saw me bopping around the room and said to my mother, 'Rosita might have talent. Can I take her to my dance teacher?' There was no thought of a career at that time, but I knew I loved the attention, and that's so much a part of being a performer.

I first became aware of Gina Rodriguez when she was just starting out starring on 'Jane the Virgin,' and a friend sent me an article in which she mentioned me.

It's not easy having a partnership in this business.

The wonderful thing about cabaret is, you can do a lot of things you can't do in a concert. You can't do smoky ballads for 50 minutes in a concert. It's a different animal.

I just love details; I love trying to make the reader smell what I was smelling at the time and see what I was seeing. Textures, too - all that kind of stuff is probably my strong suit as far as my writing goes, I would say.

I had a very poor image of myself because I believed too much of the people around me when I was very young.

I love performing for kids, but you can't play down to them, of course. Then it would be 'Captain Kangaroo.'

'Revolutionary Road' with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet absolutely destroys me. They were both so wonderful in it.

I don't want to miss out on my grandchildren and my daughter, and doing Broadway would do just that.

You've got to make a decision when you write about your life, and I decided I was going to be honest, and some of those things will be embarrassing.

I was not treated like a serious young actress, and that was very hard. It sent me into psychotherapy, which is one of the smartest things I ever did. It taught me that I had to find value in myself.