Sophia loren quotes

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 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.

Mistakes are a part of the dues one pays for a full life.

It's a mistake to think that once you're done with school you need never learn anything new.

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.

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.

Once I put myself into a thing, I do my utmost, my very, very best.

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.

I can't bear being seen naked. I'm not exactly a tiny woman. When Sophia Loren is naked, this is a lot of nakedness.

If you haven't cried, your eyes can't be beautiful.

There is no better love potion than a coffee. When a man drinks the coffee made by you he will become forever yours.

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.

Nothing makes a woman more beautiful than the belief that she is beautiful.

Physical exercise makes you more graceful. After some gymnasitics you walk as if the whole street is yours.

Any woman can look her best if she feels good in her skin. It's not a question of clothes or makeup. It's how she sparkles.

Good food is a celebration of life.

My mother taught me to walk proud and tall 'as if the world was mine.'

Success, I would find out, is interior. It has to do with self-fulfillment and the joy of living.

I always try to have a vacation.

Men always marry younger girls, but sometimes when a women who's very mature marries a younger man, she's criticized. It needs to be corrected.

There is no greater love potion than regular coffee, brewed his own. When a man tries it, he was not going anywhere.

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.

The eyes of a woman who never cried can not be beautiful.

The Fountain of Youth is in your mind.

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.

Sex appeal is 50% what you've got and 50% what people think you've got.

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.

I think the quality of sexiness comes from within.

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.

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.

I was not interested in what I could bring to myself by being an actress, but in what I could bring out of myself.

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!

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 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.

My philosophy is that it's better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe and not to explore at all.

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.

Transformation is something I cannot explain - too much analysis might destroy it.

It is very important for an actor or actress to look around at everything and everyone and never forget about real life.

When I'm walking along in the street, I always feel that around the corner,there is something wonderful waiting for me. That's my attitude.

i have no regrets. regret only makes wrinkles.

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.

A woman's dress should be like a barbed-wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view.

Everything you live through helps to make you the person you are now.

I still like me, inside and out. Not in a vain way - I just feel good in my skin.

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 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.

I'd much rather eat pasta and drink wine than be a size 0.

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.

As far as beauty is concerned, in order to be confident we must accept that the way we look and feel is our own responsibility.

Ignorance has its virtues; without it there'd be mighty little conversation.

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!

Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself.

Without my mother's ambition, her drive, I doubt that on my own I would have pushed myself out of Pozzuoli and into the frightening world that was faraway Rome.

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.

A mother has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.

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 have to be born a sex symbol. You don't become one. If you're born with it, you'll have it even when you're 100 years old.

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'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.

You really have to be satisfied with what you are and accept from life what it still very generously offers you - and notice it, and be glad for it.

Beauty is no handicap if you don't think about it.

I have my own peculiar yardstick for measuring a man: Does he have the courage to cry in a moment of grief? Does he have the compassion not to hunt an animal? In his relationship with a woman, is he gentle? Real manliness is nurtured in kindness and gentleness, which I associate with intelligence, comprehension, tolerance, justice, education, and high morality. If only men realized how easy it is to open a woman's heart with kindness, and how many women close their hearts to the assaults of the Don Juans.

Sex is like washing your face - just something you do because you have to. Sex without love is absolutely ridiculous. Sex follows love, it never precedes it.

Sometimes when you involve yourself in so many things, you can't do any of them well - and I like to do everything perfectly.

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.

The right hairstyle can make a plain woman beautiful and a beautiful woman unforgettable.

The facts of life are that a child who has seen war cannot be compared with a child who doesn't know what war is except from television.

My mother was so beautiful, she really was a a wonderful person. Always walking like a queen. Like she owned the world. Maybe I took something from her.

The two big advantages I had at birth were to have been born wise and to have been born in poverty.

Beauty is in you and is reflected in your eyes. It is not material.

You can always dream. Life is full of dreams that you can fulfill.

A dog is faithful, a woman never.

I know how to say 'no' in twelve languages. That's enough for a woman.

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.

I don't like to go in places where women talk and gossip. The atmosphere I don't like, even though you can sometimes meet nice people. For me, it's a waste of time.

Everything you see I owe to spaghetti.

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 still don't know what I want to do when I grow up.

I'm a giraffe. I even walk like a giraffe with a long neck and legs. It's a pretty dumb animal, mind you.

I'm very susceptible to sex appeal.

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.

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.

I am lucky. I had a very beautiful mother.

True love comes along after adolescence, when we have learned not to cry for nothing.

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.

I don't believe in anti-aging creams. I believe the skin should be clean, should be nourished, but most of all you should eat the right things.

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.

Learn to use your brains as deftly as your powder box, and then maybe you have a powder box and do not need.

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.

The most indespensible ingredient of all good home cooking: love for those you are cooking for.

If you can learn to use your mind as well as your powder puff, you will become more truly beautiful.

Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical.

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.

Spaghetti can be eaten most successfully if you inhale it like a vacuum cleaner.

When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.

Hate is unfulfilled love.

The girl who swears no one has ever made love to her has a right to swear.

You have to enjoy life. Always be surrounded by people that you like, people who have a nice conversation. There are so many positive things to think about.

Jealousy is a miserable feeling. It means you aspire to something that you cannot have. Even in love, it is better to leave, better not to waste time.

I was born wise. Street-wise, people-wise, self-wise. This wisdom was my birthright.

Believe me, it is actions that count.

Film is just a mirror of the society we live in.

Luck assists fortune, you need to catch the moment. Otherwise the opportunity fades.

Style must be adapted to the woman and not vice versa. The same can be said of clothes.

Until you lose your mother you don't know what it is.

The fantasy of a man is the best weapon of a woman.

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.

I'm not Italian, I am Neapolitan! It's another thing!

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.

For me, it is good to be vulnerable. It makes me nice... weak sometimes, but in a good way, not a tragic way.

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.

Being beautiful can never hurt, but you have to have more. You have to sparkle, you have to be fun, you have to make your brain work if you have one.

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.

You do not become a star, you are born a star. A star is born with that indefinable extra something.

Mistakes are the price of an interesting life.

Almost starve, but I don’t starve because I eat very much

Where youthful beauty is unconscious, mature beauty is knowing and sophisticated.

There's no pleasure in working if you don't do the things you want to do.

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.

I believe that rewards in life are deserved. Every reward is the fruit of discipline, of dedication and of sacrifices. And of stubbornness.

I firmly believe we can make our own miracles if we believe strongly enough in ourselves and our mission on earth.

I eat a lot of salad, a little meat, and some fruit—that’s all. But I like sweets.

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 can cook, I can breathe, I can live!

Cooking is an act of love, a gift, a way of sharing with others the little secrets -- 'piccoli segreti' -- that are simmering on the burners.