oldhollywood:

Greta Garbo (1925, photo by Arnold Genthe) (via)

“I asked Garbo if she and [Gloria] Swanson had been friends.

‘Yes. When we both lived in Hollywood, I used to know Miss Swanson. But it has been years since I talked to her. Three years ago, though, she wrote me a letter. It said, ‘Dear G., we both live in New York, near each other, we are both alone, we have similar lives. Why don’t we have dinner sometime? Please come over and have dinner with me.’

‘Did you?’ I asked.

‘No. I didn’t even answer her letter.’

‘Why?’

She paused and thought deeply. A hint of sadness crossed her face. Her answer to my simple question spoke volumes about Greta Garbo. ‘There was no one to make me.’”

-excerpted from William Frye’s Vanity Fair profile The Garbo Next Door

mmm GRETA GARBO

“I never said, ‘I want to be alone.’ I only said, ‘I want to be let alone.’ There is a whole world of difference.”

“The story of my life is about back entrances, side doors, secrets elevators and other ways of getting in and out of places so that people won’t bother me.”

“There are many things in your heart you can never tell another person. They are you, your private joys and sorrows, and you can never tell them. You cheapen the inside of yourself if you do.”

“Life would be so wonderful if we only knew what to do with it.”