Bette Midler Quotes

1. After thirty, a body has a mind of its own.

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2. I married a German. Every night I dress up as Poland and he invades me.

3. I'm working my way toward divinity.

4. Cherish forever what makes you unique, 'cuz you're really a yawn if it goes.

5. My idea of superwoman is someone who scrubs her own floors.

6. Group conformity scares the pants off me because it's so often a prelude to cruelty towards anyone who doesn't want to - or can't - join the Big Parade.

7. If sex is such a natural phenomenon, how come there are so many books on how to do it?

8. I made a pact with myself a long time ago: Never watch anything stupider than you. It's helped me a lot.

9. When it's three o'clock in New York, it's still 1938 in London.

10. I try not to drink too much because when I'm drunk, I bite.

11. Writing a book is not as tough as it is to haul thirty-five people around the country and sweat like a horse five nights a week.

12. I bear no grudges. I have a mind that retains nothing.

13. I always try to balance the light with the heavy - a few tears of human spirit in with the sequins and the fringes.

14. I celebrate everyone's religious holidays. If it's good enough for the righteous, it's good enough for the self-righteous, I always say.

15. I feel like a million tonight - but one at a time.

16. I hope to keep entertaining in some way until I can't physically entertain any longer. It's what I was born to do, and I love this profession.

17. I never know how much of what I say is true.

18. I sometimes think I should go back to school to learn French and music, but who would have me?

19. I'd make a wonderful Lady Macbeth. I'll wear a pair of platform shoes or something.

20. I wouldn't say I invented tacky, but I definitely brought it to its present high popularity.

21. If I could be granted a wish, I'd shine in your eye like a jewel.

22. The worst part of success is to try finding someone who is happy for you.

23. Rap is poetry set to music. But to me it's like a jackhammer.

24. Look at me! My pants are too tight! My heels are too high!! My ears are clogged!! I can't hear you...your lips are moving....what? WHAT??

25. Listen, do me a favor and go find my purse, would ya? I think I still have a fatburger in there!!

26. I look like the last twenty minutes of "For the Boys"!!

27. Alright baby, what's it gonna be tonight...lady, or the tramp!?!

28. OoH, wifely duties! Mine is a wide and heavy load!!

29. Oh, Connie...dear, sweet Connie...get your head outta my tucus and hand me the phone!!

30. Please? Oh PLEASE! Please, it's an emergency! A Cher-sized emergency!!

31. Criminey! You could serve a sader on those things!!

32. She has an irrational fear of anything medical...her mother was jilted by a podiatrist!

33. Doctor, I just wanna look good, not whistle!!

34. You have a mistress??!! It's Sally Field, isn't it?!!! Get me outta this thing!! I've been lookin' for an excuse to kill her for twenty years!!! I'M COMIN' FOR YA, GIDGET!

35. (half-joking about the semi-autobiographical character she plays on her new CBS sitcom, "Bette," to New York's Daily News) I think the ill-tempered and venal quality of my true self is reflected.

36. Basically, what I was doing was a character that has always had a place in show business, and that's the Broad. People always love a broad - someone with a sense of humor, someone with a fairly wicked tongue, someone who can belt out a song, someone who takes no guff. When I came up, there wasn't anyone like that. The last one, I'd have to say, was Sophie Tucker.

37. I don't have any heroes. I don't lionize anyone. To my credit, I think...I know that I'm unique, and I know that I'm different and special, and I'm thrilled to death to be this person...when you have heroes like that, it tends to make you feel helpless. You think: "*uck, Jesus was 33 and he changed the whole world, and I'm 34 and I haven't done nuthin'." If you sit around doing that all day, you're REALLY not gonna do nuthin'.

38. I adore deceit and I don't mind being misquoted. I will not, however, allow myself to be made to sound boring to my countless fans who are convinced that I am, if not Jackie O., then certainly the next best thing!

39. Despite the way things turned out (AIDS), I'm still proud of those days (when I got my start singing at the gay bathhouses in New York City). I feel like I was at the forefront of the gay liberation movement, and I hope I did my part to help it move forward. So, I kind of wear the label of "Bathhouse Betty" with pride.

40. I am never very far away from my spirit. It's just a quarter of an inch below the surface of my skin. It's been very responsive to nature and to the lifeforms around me and I think that's part of having a spiritual nature. At the end of the line you come to some sort of enlightenment and that enlightenment is, that we're all in this together and that things have to fall away from your in order for you to find where that spirit really lies within yourself.

41. This cause means so much to me...that I am prepared, for the pledge of a mere five thousand dollars to drop my dress for Isreal!

42. I have the magic words: "I don't care anymore!"

43. Was I a funny-looking kid? Well, yeah. I mean, I had the frizzy hair and I wore these cat's-eye glasses...no, they were NOT on a chain! Thank GOD!" (Barbra Walters: Interviews of a Lifetime)

44. I didn't belong as a kid, and that always bothered me. If only I'd known that one day my differentness would be an asset, then my early life would have been much easier.

45. Me, I'm just a hack. I'm just a schlepper. I just do what I can do.

46. (Our father) didn't like us wearing make up and we had a curfew some ridiculous hour like ten o'clock, and if you weren't in the house you usually got locked out. Us sisters were always sticking up for each other and always sneaking each other in the window at night.

47. Music is the truest expression of myself. Working in film, you're basically at the mercy of someone else's vision. With a record, I'm the final arbiter. And I like having that kind of control. Of course, when I'm singing I'm also acting. Every song should be a scene...it should take you someplace and leave you with a feeling...but I'm attracted to the words and if the words aren't well put together, I have a hard time relating to the song. I'm an actor, even in my music, and an actor needs words.

48. I've never known anyone to tell the truth about sex EVER! Have you? I have never, ever…I have never told the truth about sex. (Bette Midler on Larry King Live in October 1998, discussing the Clinton/Monica/Kenn Starr fiasco)

49. There's nothing in this world that is more worthy to own than compassion.

50. In trying to help someone else you will find your self.

51. I have my standards. They may be low, but I have them.

52. I'm as confident as Cleopatra's pussy.

53. Live like every day is your last, work like you don't need the money, love like you've never been hurt, and dance like nobody's watching.

54. I'm pretty gutsy, but I'm intimidated by tremendous accomplishment... and by people who are very tall.

55. My specialty is to make people laugh really, really hard and then turn around and make them cry. That's what I do.

56. When I moved to New York, I was very disappointed in how parts of the city looked. I was so upset, I didn't sleep for weeks. I love New Yorkers, and I'm like them. I'm noisy, I have my opinions, but I'm not used to the kind of carelessness and waste that I was seeing. People were throwing their garbage out the window, leaving their lunches on the ground. Finally, I realized I needed to actually do something - even if I had to pick up the stuff with my own two hands.

57. My whole life had been spent waiting for an epiphany, a manifestation of God's presence, the kind of transcendent, magical experience that lets you see your place in the big picture. And that is what I had with my first compost heap.

58. Cats always seem so very wise, when staring with their half-closed eyes. Can they be thinking: "I'll be nice, and maybe she will feed me twice?"

59. I married a saint and gave birth to an angel.

60. I've always said what other people were afraid to say, and always in the shortest, tightest skirt possible.

61. I love to work. I love the idea of putting a show together, and I love the idea of putting musical numbers together - and putting commentary together and character. I love that..I love it!! That's the only time I'm really alive. I never learned to relax. When I don't work, I feel half-alive.

62. You know, I wanted to leave you with the memory of the good beneath the gaudy, the saint beneath the paint, the pure little soul that lurks beneath this lurid exterior... but then again I figured: Fuc*'EM IF THEY CAN'T TAKE A JOKE!

63. It's the point of your view that decides what you see. One man's flop is another man's hit.

64. From manners to movies, the picture keeps changing, depending upon where you sit.

65. Make sure that life is a rare entertainment! It doesn't take anything drastic. You needn't be gorgeous or wealthy or smart, just very enthusiastic!

66. Well, who's' more rif-raf than me??

67. So people whose diapers I've changed are hotter than me??

68. Honey you're so sexy when you get Biblical!!

69. Well at least they get to be forgotten! I mean, I mean, I'm not even on the list! That means they've already forgotten to forget me!!

70. The emotionally unstable don't wear bras! If I were sane do you think I'd let these chi-chi's be swingin' a capella?!?!

71. (on acting) You have to think you're the greatest thing since sliced bread, but know you're not.

72. (during a concert in Brisbane, Australia 2005) It's been 26 years since I was last here. Before my fans were all taking drugs; this time they're all taking medication!

73. Get the trash off the street and back on the stage where it belongs.

74. In Hawaii I was the chief chunker in a pineapple canning factory. I used to come home smelling like a compote.

75. Underneath all this drag I'm really a librarian, you know.

76. (Asked by Parade Magazine whether she will retire after her show in Las Vegas) I think so. I must say, my high kick is just as high as it ever was, thanks to tai chi. But everything is a bit slower. The mind - things don't stick the way they used to. I feel like I'm going out with a bang. It's something my husband and I have talked about. I certainly don't want to die in harness. I'm not one of those people.

77. It's the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance. It is the dream afraid of waking that never takes the chance. It is the one who won't be taken who cannot seem to give. And the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live.

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