Quotes

Quotes by Inger

There is no reason to be an actor or actress unless you can be part of the statement of your generation. I want to be happy in my work. By making yourself happy through dramatic achievement I believe you can make other people happy.

Source: "Inger Stevens Follows Nordic Non-Conformity" Desert Sun. May 28, 1960.

One of the nicest compliments I can get and I guess it doesn't really sound like a compliment, comes when people tell me that I don't seem like an actress. We are doing a job, just as a banker or a truck driver is doing a job. I don't know why people persist in treating us as something apart. My job and the money I earn doesn't make me different...Fifty percent of life is a big joke. It has to be, at least for actors. Here we are, all grown up, getting heated up over the fact that a light is misplaced on the set or a dress to be worn in the next scene isn't right, while the world is falling apart around us.

Source: "Actors are People-Inger Stevens" The State Journal. March 10, 1962.

The pot of gold over the rainbow isn't really there. Didn't you know that? I don't think everybody really wants it, anyway, but so many people say they do because they think everybody else does. The pot of gold just had a good press agent, that's all.

Source: "Situation Wanted" Desert Sun. February 20, 1960.

But I do want somebody I can laugh with and see life in its proper perspective. How many people do you know who have really seen the sunlight? You can be lonely with 10,000,000 people. And don't smile as though it were a lot of hogwash, because you know it isn't!

Source: "Situation Wanted" Desert Sun. February 20, 1960.

Though they [comparisons to Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly] are complimentary, I hate comparisons. I suppose they are the result of a laziness of description; people can't think up new adjectives, so they make comparisons. But I'd rather be known as Inger Stevens.
Source: "Hollywood" Santa Cruz Sentinel. October 24, 1957.

I've been supporting myself since I was 15. I've done everything, including taking inventory at Montgomery Ward in Kansas. What fun it was—counting wool socks with the temperature 115!
Source: "Hollywood" Santa Cruz Sentinel. October 24, 1957.

Right now I consider myself a very fortunate girl. I'm doing what I like best—acting.
Source: "Bing's New Leading Lady." San Bernardino County Sun. June 16, 1957.

I'm a mixture of many heritages and environments. In particular, the environmental changes I've made have always been drastic. I'm sure they've affected my personality.
Source: "Bing's New Leading Lady." San Bernardino County Sun. June 16, 1957.

I've got this kind of crooked face, but it doesn't bother me—I'm not a mirror watcher. And then I have these big feet. They're 9AA, but that's the same size as Greta Garbo's.

Source: TV Guide,  September 28, 1963.

And today I think values are beginning to settle down, and I'm quite a happy person—not only in work, but in my personal life. I've had many problems in my life, but now I think I've come over the hurdles. And today I feel I can solve any problems that may come up by simply taking some time and thinking it through.

Source: TV Star Parade, November 1964

At 16 I ran away to join burlesque. I never thought of it being bad, so, because I didn't think bad, nothing that happened to me was bad. I remember being asked to care for a drunken performer, sick and helpless. People said, "disgusting and shocking." I thought only that he was a sick man; nothing shocked or disgusted me because I could see nothing bad in the world.
Source: Ryan, Jack. "The Lady's a Loner and Likes It." The Kilgore News Herald Sun. August 27, 1967.

I generally feel very uneasy around girls, particularly ones without brains and believe me they were all without...I felt so out of place. As if I didn't belong there or any place. Kinda dead in a way. The girls didn't seem like people, but like shells assuming a personality for that hour, only to be another personality during the next. It was meaningless and it felt good to get out in the cold air.

Source: Inger about dining with models at a restaurant, in a 1950's letter to a friend, printed in TFDR

All of the people were terribly nice and underneath it all, terribly nasty. Superficially they were all terribly intellectual, but what a bunch of phonies. I keep telling myself, time and time again, that I should be able to get along with these people, but Sunday was the last straw. There are too many real people around; one should be able to be around without frittering away precious time on a mass of superficiality. This isn't to imply that I'm better than they are. I just can't be honest to myself and act like that at the same time.

Source: Inger on a party she attended, in a 1950's letter to a friend, printed in TFDR

You can´t stop the flow of time and there is no point in trying, but you can feel young indefinitely. This projects because it is a part of you, and it is felt as strangely as happiness is felt, without having to be announced.
Source: Lane, Lydia. ¨Wrong to Undervalue Maturity, Believes Actress Inger Stevens.¨ South Bend Tribune. April 6, 1969. 

I have this immense insatiable appetite to learn more about myself and the world around me. I could just exist and watch the world turn, but this is not for me. Knowledge is the goal I seek, then I want to learn to put it to use.

Source: TFDR

When something happens to you, it adds and it takes away. I know this sounds corny, but it makes you the way you are. You can't stay hurt from one experience the rest of your life. This is childish and immature and a waste of time and energy. May, it makes you more cautious, or makes you reexamine yourself and your motives and values. But it shouldn't change your basic optimism; it shouldn't make you pessimistic.

Source: TV Radio Mirror, July 1965.

I’ve worked hard for a long time, and I don’t want to end those years without relaxing and enjoying life. At the moment, my financial situation is such that I’m not being pressed to work. So I can travel and move around. Maybe 10 years from now that won’t be possible...
Source: Scott, Vernon. “Inger Stevens Socks Her Cash Away.” San Bernardino Sun. August 29, 1969.

I hate to be late and can't relax if I don't know the lines.
Source: "Pretty Inger Stevens Says Life of Star Isn't All Glamor—It's Hard Work." Santa Cruz Sentinel. July 6, 1964.

If movies were made more intelligently, more intelligent people would come.

Source: "Inger Stevens Follows Nordic Non-Conformity" Desert Sun. May 28, 1960.

I like to paint, but I haven't had much time to paint for quite sometime now because I work practically all the time and I have very little free time...sometime on a Sunday afternoon. I hope to be able to have more free time soon. I am not a painter! I am an actress who likes to paint for relaxation. I think the reason that actors and actresses paint is that it's the one thing that they can do that other people really don't tamper with.

Source: "65 Sheri Street" Press Democrat. November 3, 1966.