Carmen Dell'Orefice quotes

As a model, I didn't have an identity; I was a chameleon, a silent actress. I was an amorphous thing. I wasn't full of personality, I was full of solitude and solemnity. I wasn't a cover-girl type. (Carmen Dell'Orefice)

We're all works of art in progress.

Carmen Dell'Orefice

Fashion is more about taste than money - you have to understand your body and tailor clothes to your needs; it's all about the fit. I do the alterations myself - I'm quite a seamstress - it's the influence of my Hungarian mother.

Carmen Dell'Orefice

I didn't marry to have children. I married to have a relationship, and I was blessed with one child. I was an only child, too - my mother was smarter than most women today; she just had me.

Carmen Dell'Orefice

I don't live for stuff and things, and if I had to live in a cardboard box, I would put curtains on it.

Carmen Dell'Orefice

I'm loath to do interviews. What comes out is generally not what I meant or thought I was saying or thought they were asking.

Carmen Dell'Orefice

If your ceiling is falling down, don't you call someone in? I apply the same principle to myself.

Carmen Dell'Orefice

You know, Italian-Hungarian - no matter how linear and cool I look on the outside, I have all that energy trying to find its way through life.

Carmen Dell'Orefice

We are oceans apart. My mother had a very difficult life.

Carmen Dell'Orefice

My dream was to become a ballet dancer, but after a year in bed with rheumatic fever at 13, I had grown too tall, and had no muscle tone left. I tried a ballet class and couldn't even do a plie without falling over. It was my first death.

Carmen Dell'Orefice

People shouldn't look at me and think life is one big piece of glamour. That's the marketing, the spin. Life is challenging. But I have courage, strength, and enough good health to see the positive. (Carmen Dell'Orefice)

We have to program the mind of the public that age is not ugly. Age is just age. Wake up, American children, and stop listening to other people's voices. Know yourself, be true to yourself and make a contribution. It took me half my life to know myself. I listened to other people's opinions and took them as gospel.

Carmen Dell'Orefice

I exercise every day. I don't get up and have a cup of coffee anymore, I get up and move to get blood to my brain.

Carmen Dell'Orefice

There's always a boyfriend. Whatever else I have to give up on, I won't give up on love.

Carmen Dell'Orefice

My life has been amazing. How many other ladies of 76 can say that the snapshot on their senior citizen's card was taken by Norman Parkinson?

Carmen Dell'Orefice

The money I've earned has enabled me to keep my life in my own hands. I had a terrific body, and I got paid for using it.

Carmen Dell'Orefice

Even with a computer, I can't get rid of all the papers in my life.

Carmen Dell'Orefice

I'm a working woman of 80 trying to work out what the image I can project is. How I can do it with, you know, dignity.

Carmen Dell'Orefice

My mother was harsh and constantly told me I had jug ears and heaven knows what else. But she was devoted and a hard worker.

Carmen Dell'Orefice

We were so poor that my mother would often leave me in a foster home until she could raise enough money to rent rooms for us.

Carmen Dell'Orefice

Carmen Dell'Orefice

Carmen Dell'Orefice - Image

Photo: Christopher Macsurak, CC BY 2.0

Occupation: American Model
Born: June 3, 1931
Quotes count: 20

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