Personal Quotes by Natalie Wood

You get tough in this business, until you get big enough to hire people to get tough for you. Then you can sit back and be a lady.

[in 1961] In so many ways I think it's a bore to be sorry you were a child actor - so many people feel sorry for you automatically. At the time I wasn't aware of the things I missed, so why should I think of them in retrospect? Everybody misses something or other.

I felt a little funny when we were going to do the bed scene, all four of us, in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969). I'm open to suggestions, I'm no prude, but four is a crowd in my book. Fortunately, Dyan Cannon was there. The thought of another woman being in there in the bed helped get me through it. It's not like it sounds. It's just that I don't think I could have done it if it had been me and three men.

[on being a child actor] I spent practically all my time in the company of adults. I was very withdrawn, very shy, I did what I was told and I tried not to disappoint anybody. I knew I had a duty to perform, and I was trained to follow orders.

[shortly before her death] You know what I want? I want yesterday.

[on dating Elvis Presley] Elvis was so square, we'd go . . . for hot fudge sundaes. He didn't drink, he didn't swear, he didn't even smoke. It was like having the date that I never had in high school.

[In 1981] I've always been terrified, still am, of water -- dark water or sea water, or river water or whatever.

[On Marilyn Monroe] When you look at Marilyn on the screen you don't want anything bad to happen to her. You really care that she should be all right...happy.