Top 22 Esther Williams Quotes

Three events. Three gold medals. I was news, big news, in the sports world.

I was all in gold sequins for Million Dollar Mermaid, 50 feet in the air.

I gave my eardrums to MGM. And it’s true: I really did.

When you‘re out of sight for as long as I was, there’s a funny feeling of betrayal that comes over people when they see you again.

I always took it for granted that there would be life after Hollywood.

I was 15, and the years of hard swimming had packed muscle on my frame and made me very strong. Not as strong as a football player, but strong enough to inflict heavy damage.

I never walked the streets of New York hoping to be a musical comedy star. For one thing, they would have thought I was too tall, because l was five feet eight and a half, and they were all little bitty things running around in the studio at that time.

I think it’s so funny when people think they can’t control a movie star. They can. We’re just women, you know.

Somehow I kept my head above water. I relied on the discipline, character, and strength that I had started to develop as that little girl in her first swimming pool.

I took a job at the pool in order to earn the five cents a day it cost to swim. I counted wet towels. As a bonus, I was allowed to swim during lunchtime.

Traveling to swimming meets took me beyond my small-town existence, gave me a hint of the exciting world outside of my own home.

Critics established a snobbery toward me.

Widowhood had done nothing to curb my smart mouth. So much for diplomacy.

Victor Mature was a big man; he had a great swagger. I liked him and I knew we’d be good together on screen.

By the time I got home at night, my eyes were so chlorinated I saw rings around every light.

Even though I had a lucrative contract with MGM, I had a husband who was drinking and gambling our money away faster than I could make it.

What the public expects and what is healthy for an individual are two very different things.

My training in Science of Mind had begun with my mother. She took me to a different church every Sunday, and she encouraged me to question the minister afterward.

The newspapers loved pinup pictures of pretty young swimmers, and as a national champion, I got more than my share of space in the sports pages.

Clark Gable was the first to have called me a mermaid.

I remember when I first walked into Mayer’s cavernous office. You had to walk 50 yards to get to him, and in that time he could really study everything about you.

The wisdom acquired with the passage of time is a useless gift unless you share it.