Rita Moreno Quotes

Author Image

Rita Moreno

Profession : Actress

Birth : December 11, 1931

You can't, or you shouldn't, be nominated for an Oscar unless you've turned in a performance that's special.

Rita Moreno

Is there a grandmother that isn't spunky on television? Is there such a creature?

Rita Moreno

I never had an easy time making friends in the past, for many reasons. I didn't go into therapy for nothing.

Rita Moreno

I've always had this image of this strong, sprightly person who is undaunted by anything; on the contrary, I was one of the shyest, most unsure people you ever met in your life. But I have one very specific quality: I'm plucky. I really am. I would say that's a perfect description of my personality.

Rita Moreno

I am a very positive and optimistic person.

Rita Moreno

If you saw me in 'The King and I,' I had that angelic, virginal face.

Rita Moreno

'America' took at least five days of actual filming.

Rita Moreno

I sing Broadway stuff in the shower, mostly.

Rita Moreno

A friend of my mother's, Irene Lopez, was a Spanish dancer. She saw me bopping around the room and said to my mother, 'Rosita might have talent. Can I take her to my dance teacher?' There was no thought of a career at that time, but I knew I loved the attention, and that's so much a part of being a performer.

Rita Moreno

You can never fight for a part or can't beg them to do another audition. You can try, but that rarely works.

Rita Moreno

I feel like I could go on forever.

Rita Moreno

My best work happened on the stage.

Rita Moreno

I was never offered enough, and that's the truth.

Rita Moreno

I was always typecast as a Latina.

Rita Moreno

You've got to make a decision when you write about your life, and I decided I was going to be honest, and some of those things will be embarrassing.

Rita Moreno

I auditioned for 'West Side Story' just like everybody else, and I nearly had a heart attack, because I hadn't danced in about - oh, I don't know, about 15 years.

Rita Moreno

Being the house ethnic was destroying my life and my sense of myself, because I had been consigned to play every dusky maiden you have ever seen in your life in movies.

Rita Moreno

When I was nominated for the Oscar, I was absolutely positive that Judy Garland would win for 'Judgment at Nuremberg,' and then they call my name, and I was absolutely paralyzed. And I remember walking down to the stage and saying to myself, 'Don't run. It's not dignified.'

Rita Moreno

I have played Polynesian. I have played an Arabian girl. I played an East Indian girl. And what was so confusing about that, which I mention in my book, is that I assumed I had to have an accent. Nobody said anything, so I made up what I call the universal ethnic accent, and they all sounded alike. It didn't matter who I was playing.

Rita Moreno

Doing 'Life Without Makeup' onstage is what inspired me to do a book in the first place.

Rita Moreno