Quotes from Shirley Temple

I was in Vienna in August 1968 for a meeting of the International Federation of Multiple Sclerosis Societies, of which I was co-founder, and we wanted a 20th country to join. They asked for a volunteer to go to Prague to get Czechoslovakia to do it, and my hand always goes up first.

I wish my name was Cobb. Then they would send over a Cobb salad.

The idea of being with my peers at a real school seemed much more exciting than making movies.

I've always been bossy.

I wanted to be the first girl in my class to get married. From the seventh grade on, I used to write in my yearbook under each senior's picture, 'married' or 'engaged.' I had marriage on the brain.

I wanted to be in the FBI. I also wanted to be a pie salesman.

I loved what I did. I remember cruel mothers who would pinch their children to make them cry in a scene, but my mother encircled me with affection.

I had had enough pretend. I wanted to be in the real world.

Time is money. Wasted time means wasted money means trouble.

I've led three lives: the acting part, wife and mother - which is a career - and international relations. I'm proud of my career, the first one, and I'm proud of the other two, too.

My mother made it seem perfectly normal for thousands of people to be cheering me, as if there was nothing special going on. I thought all children must live as I did.

I guess I was an early method actress. I would go to a quiet part of the sound stage with my mother. I wouldn't think of anything sad, I would just make my mind a blank. In a minute I could cry.

There are many of us who should be in a position to bring peace to the world.

When you're a performer, you have to please a large audience. And when you're in politics, you have to please a large audience, too.

When I asked my mother why crowds shouted my name and said 'We love you,' she would dust it off by saying, 'Your work makes them happy.' She never let it go to my head.

Make-believe colors the past with innocent distortion, and it swirls ahead of us in a thousand ways - in science, in politics, in every bold intention.

One famous movie executive, who shall remain nameless, exposed himself to me in his office. 'Mr X,' I said, 'I thought you were a producer, not an exhibitor.'

Men say, 'I've loved you since I was 7 years old,' and I say, 'Well, you never contacted me.' And very often women say, 'Do youuuuuu know what I have?' and I want to say, 'Yessssssss, I do.' Because inevitably the answer is, 'An original Shirley Temple doll.'

Shirley Temple opens doors for Shirley Temple Black.

At the end of the Depression, people were perhaps looking for something to cheer themselves up. They fell in love with a dog and a little girl. It won't happen again.

I have always told anyone who would listen that I was available for more public service.

I remember telling President Carter on his first night, when I was escorting people around, that I was interested in continuing public service and that politics didn't matter - but it does, doesn't it?

Biographies of me have usually been compiled from old newspaper clips, untruthful publicity stories, and reminiscences of people who claim to have known me well.

Long ago, I became more interested in the real world than in make-believe.