Sophia Loren Quotes

Sex appeal is fifty percent what you've got and fifty percent what people think you've got.

I was born wise. Street-wise, people-wise, self-wise. This wisdom was my birthright. I was also born old. And illegitimate. But the two big advantages I had at birth were to have been born wise and to have been born in poverty.

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

I wanted to be able to walk into the kind of places my father walked into. I wanted to understand what it was like to live like he did. I wanted reasons. I wanted answers…But I got nowhere.

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

Success introduces you to the world. But failure introduces the world to you.

Naples is so strong, so vital. It’s about music and dance. Books and books of history. Read all the books first and then we can talk.

I lived my life as best I could, hidden behind a thin yet sturdy veil of shyness. Yes, I know it’s hard to believe, but I was really shy, perhaps because of our situation: My father was absent, and my mother was too blond, too tall, too lively, and, above all, unmarried. Her eccentric, excessive beauty embarrassed me. She was a ragazza madre, a girl-mother, as the saying goes. I dreamed of a normal, reassuring mother, with black hair, a creased apron, her hands rough, and her eyes tired — like Mamma Luisa, whom I would find once again a few decades later in A Special Day, a movie in which I play a character named Antonietta, a devoted housewife and mother of six.

"Good morning. "Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with the inner drive, go much farther than people with vastly superior talent

Emancipationen ville være mere troværdig, hvis den ikke så hyppigt blev repræsenteret af kvinder, der har kommet til kort i kærligheden.

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.

La fantasia dell'uomo è l'arma migliore della donna.

every opportunity is a big opportunity,

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.

If you haven't cried, your eyes cannot be beautiful