Quotes from Ali MacGraw

I think that I was lucky that I was 30 when I did 'Love Story', which came with this extravagant pop celebrity. I had already done 15 years of what I call 'real' work.' I was a waitress, chambermaid, and a photographer's assistant, so I knew that I was tremendously lucky as a novice actor to have that big hit.

I think it's tough when you're very young and you maybe fall for the celebrity and being the center of attention.

I've always loved animals and I always thought that they were, if not better, then the absolute equal of any two legged creature that God ever created.

My ex-husband happens to be one of the most gifted moviemakers. And what is so bizarre about working with someone like that? I guess it is bizarre to be good friends with your ex-husband.

I'm learning how to live in the present and be grateful for what's working rather than look for the 'what's not working' piece.

In film, there's so many little things where not just the actor can blow his lines, but technically, it doesn't quite come off in the perfect way envisioned.

I had no real experience studying acting; I came to it having done other things for a living for many, many years, and I have this gigantic respect for experience and technique.

The quality of my life has changed dramatically - not the events - but the way I handle them and my priorities and my sense of drama.

There's so much craziness that comes along with being a movie star that you can get so confused. Unless you've spent your whole life waiting to be the centre of attention, it's pretty terrifying.

Modeling was so fleeting it doesn't count in my life scheme.

I want to be a person who makes a quiet difference.

If you're a baby about the media, as I was, you can't imagine what it's like when the great approval machine shines its beam on you, when every time you cross the street someone comes out of a manhole to talk about your haircut.

My parents made no money whatsoever, but they really knew how to see, as artists. So a big adventure might be, on a hot, dreadful day with no place to go, to go out and draw our chickens with pastels. My parents gave me a sense of wonder.

I have this amazing life.

Looking at beautiful things is what makes me the happiest.

I think we live in a time where people are just insane on the subject of how they look.

Here's what I had: I had the arrogance of saying I'd like to be in a 'good' movie, so in fact, when I was hot, I turned down a lot of stuff because I didn't think I wanted to watch it.

I'm in total awe of the technique of great film people. Because if you get your emotional life up to perfection by miracle on Take One, you better have a technique to keep doing it again and again and again.

I can't remember when I wasn't an animal rights activist.

I think something will soon have to be done to protect people from hacking and blogging and lying and spreading rumors and chasing you down the street. Lives are wrecked that way.

I'm very touched on a deep level by cruelty to animals.

I'm much more famous than I am rich, but I'm able to scale back my lifestyle. I know a lot of people who were where I was who can't imagine living any simpler, but I haven't got a lot of expensive wants.

I had a romantic, 'Aren't I a good girl?' take on divorce, but the truth is that was stupid.

There are so many kinds of love, and they're all very intense for me.