Top 9 Shirley Temple Black Quotes

You've got to S-M-I-L-E
To be H-A-Double-P-Y

I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.

"My Chicken can do a special trick!

"And what is that?"

She can lay an egg!

"And what's so special about THAT?!"

Well, Can YOU lay an egg?"

Any star can be devoured by human adoration, sparkle by sparkle.

Oh, my, word...

Lesson one: Being a starlet is a complicated life, especially when you're four years old.

This MGM flurry of concern about my body was unnerving. Having always taken my appearance for granted, I felt suddenly misshapen. Even Mother, whose earlier comments had always been good-natured, joined the critical chorus. [...] Stuck with myself, once again I resolved to stay friends with my body.

"Not for nothing was the MGM lot known as the "factory," a studio perfumed with sultry, busty creatures with long legs and tight haunches, and more than its quota of lecherous older men."

To be hoisted onto laps, pinched by incredulous strangers, to occasionally get my curls tugged, to be cooed at, photographed, and quoted -all this was part of the job.