How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from Sunset Boulevard.
Quote #1
JOE: A murder has been reported from one of those great big houses in the ten thousand block. You'll read all about it in the late editions, I'm sure. You'll get it over your radio, and see it on television, because an old-time star is involved, one of the biggest. But before you hear it all distorted and blown out of proportion, before those Hollywood columnists get their hands on it, maybe you'd like to hear the facts, the whole truth…
I'll tell it to you straight, says Joe. Right away, Joe tells us that the Hollywood tabloids are going to distort the story of his murder, presenting us with one of the movie's major points—Hollywood is full of illusions. Since Joe is dead when we meet him, and probably doesn't have that much interest in telling us lies, we can presume his version of events is closer to the truth.
Quote #2
JOE: Only asking. I didn't know you were planning a comeback.
NORMA: I hate that word. It is a return. A return to the millions of people who have never forgiven me for deserting the screen.
Even back in 1950, when the movie came out (and the movie business had only really existed for less than forty years—the first Hollywood studio was built on Sunset in 1913), the "comeback" was already a thing. Today we have numerous examples of old, apparently washed-up or addicted actors cleaning up and returning to triumph later in life. But Norma thinks that a "comeback" is a lousy term because she can't admit that she ever stopped being famous—so that's why it has to be a "return."
Quote #3
MAX: Madame's doctor. She has moments of melancholy. There have been some suicide attempts.
JOE: Uh-huh?
MAX: We have to be very careful. No sleeping pills, no razor blades. We shut off the gas in her bedroom.
JOE: Why? Her career? She got enough out of it. She's not forgotten. She still gets those fan letters.
MAX: I wouldn't look too closely at the postmarks.
The fact that Norma keeps trying to kill herself indicates that she is aware that her delusions are really delusions. Max thinks he's helping her by feeding those delusions with the fake fan letters, but evidently it's not encouraging any enduring stability in Norma.
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.
Quote #7
JOE: De Mille didn't have the heart to tell you. None of us has had the heart.
NORMA: That's a lie! They want me, they want me! I get letters every day!
JOE: You tell her, Max. Come on, do her that favor. Tell her there isn't going to be any picture—there aren't any fan letters, except the ones you write yourself.
NORMA: That isn't true! Max?
MAX: Madame is the greatest star of them all... I will take Mr. Gillis' bags.
Joe tries to get Max to bust Norma's illusions—but Max doesn't want to destroy her. Joe probably doesn't want to destroy her either, just make her see the truth. But she can't, and the collision of reality with her madness makes her murder Joe.
Quote #8
NORMA: Stars are ageless, aren't they?
Well, gee. Hmm. How about… NO. Here, Norma is in the depths of her madness, reaffirming her belief in her own immortality against all evidence. She thinks she's like a literal star that will burn on and on through the eons, when, in reality, her shelf life as a celebrity is just a couple decades.