A deer in the body of a woman, living resentfully in the Hollywood zoo.
— Clara Boothe Luce

There's no need to have beautiful features in order to be beautiful. It is the overall arrangement and its particular harmony that gives the impression of beauty. But in Greta's case every single feature was not only boldly designed but perfect by itself. Nothing was small in her face. A broad, high forehead, a strong chiselled nose, wide mouth, and most impressive of all, enormous dark blue eyes set under eyebrows curved like butterfly wings. When we swam together, she would dive and reappear on the surface with drops of water clinging separately to eyelashes that looked as if they had been purchased at the drugstore. To me, though, the unique quality of her face showed at its best when she was displeased. In Greta’s face, even her frown was a thing of beauty.
— Lilli Palmer

What when drunk one sees in other women, one sees in Garbo sober.
— Kenneth Tynan

The saddest thing in my career is that I was never able to photograph her in color. I begged the studio. I felt I had to get those incredible blue eyes in color but they said no. The process at the time was cumbersome and expensive, and the pictures were already making money. I still feel sad about it.
— William Daniels

What Garbo had was a body that transmitted and received. She responded spontaneously with emotion and warmth and what she felt the audience felt, yet the information transmitted by the body was perceived as emanating from the face.
— Geraldine de Vorak (Garbo's stand-in)

Her instinct, her mastery over the machine, was pure witchcraft. I cannot analyse this woman's acting. I only know that no one else so effectively worked in front of a camera.
— Bette Davis

A woman like that comes around only once every hundred years.
— G.W. Pabst

Friend Claire Koger recalled how Garbo used to carry a small statue of St. Jude (patron saint of desperate cases; martyred while preaching Christianity in ) in her purse at all times: “Garbo thought it would keep her safe and lucky. It was so important to her that if by chance she left the apartment without it, Garbo would hurry back to fetch it before sallying forth on her "trot" of the day.”