How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from Sunset Boulevard.
Quote #4
JOE: Sometimes as we watched, she'd clutch my arm or my hand, forgetting she was my employer, becoming just a fan, excited about that actress up there she saw on the screen… I guess I don't have to tell you who the star was. They were always her pictures—that's all she wanted to see.
Norma has an inexhaustible appetite for her own image. It's gone beyond narcissism and become a kind of madness. She doesn't really live in a world where anyone exists except for herself—they're all actors in a melodrama with her in the starring role.
Quote #5
JOE: After that, an army of beauty experts invaded the house on Sunset Boulevard. She went through a merciless series of treatments, massages, sweat cabinets, mud baths, ice compresses, electric devices. She lived on vegetable juices and went to bed at nine. She was determined to be ready. Ready for those cameras that would never turn.
Poor Norma has jumped the gun. In reality, she's not going to be making a movie with Cecil B. DeMille, and DeMille himself only said that he would see what he could do. Her attempt to completely renew her appearance is deluded, for sure. But it's also pitiable at the same time. Even though she believes that she's ageless and eternal, she has to go to insane lengths to make sure that she doesn't suffer the effects of time.
Quote #6
BETTY: Look at this street. All cardboard, all hollow, all phony. All done with mirrors. I like it better than any street in the world. Maybe because I used to play here when I was a kid.
Betty grew up in showbiz, so, in her eyes, the fake street isn't just a fake—it's a symbol of the imaginative power that supposedly drives Hollywood. It's got glamour and life hidden behind its fake façades. We can't decide if this is dark irony or real optimism. Which is maybe the point?