How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from Sunset Boulevard.
Quote #4
DEMILLE: You didn't know Norma Desmond as a plucky little girl of seventeen, with more courage and wit and heart than ever came together in one youngster.
1ST ASSISTANT: I hear she was a terror to work with.
DEMILLE: She got to be. A dozen press agents working overtime can do terrible things to the human spirit.
When in doubt, always blame the media. DeMille is implying that the press agents manufactured a larger-than-life, glamorous image of Norma, which she came to believe in. She lost her sense of her own real humanity—and with it her wit and heart—by falling in love with this self-image.
Quote #5
NORMA: I don't care about the money. I just want to work again. You don't know what it means to know that you want me.
DEMILLE: Nothing would thrill me more—if it were possible.
NORMA: But remember, darling—I don't work before ten in the morning, and never after 4:30 in the afternoon.
Norma's practically begging for work, yet at the same time, she's making these diva demands about her working hours. It shows that she both understands and doesn't understand her position in the world. Hmm. We wonder how she pulls that off.
Quote #6
JOE: Norma, grow up. You're a woman of fifty. There's nothing tragic about being fifty—not unless you try to be twenty-five.
Norma wants to believe in her own eternal youth, and can't accept the natural process of aging. Joe puts things in perspective, stating the obvious—everyone gets old. But the illusions of celebrity deny that fundamental fact.