Barbra Streisand Quotes & Sayings

I never liked stardom. It's weird to me. I only like the creative process. I only like the work. — Barbra Streisand

The idea of a liberal media bias is simply a myth. If only it were true, we might have a more humane, open-minded, and ultimately effective public debate on the issues facing the country. — Barbra Streisand

I've been called many names like perfectionist, difficult and obsessive. I think it takes obsession, takes searching for the details for any artist to be good. — Barbra Streisand

It takes me about 10 years to appreciate what it is I've done. — Barbra Streisand

We have a president who stole the presidency through family ties, arrogance and intimidation, employing Republican operatives to exercise the tactics of voter fraud by disenfranchising thousands of blacks, elderly Jews and other minorities. — Barbra Streisand

I don't like the word 'superstar'. It has ridiculous implications. These words - star, stupor, superstar, stupid star - they're misleading. It's a myth. — Barbra Streisand

I do have friends that are Republicans, and we have very spirited conversations on a whole range of issues. I am often baffled by why they are Republicans, but I enjoy the dialogue and can move beyond politics to find common ground in my personal relationships. — Barbra Streisand

My nose was part of my heritage, and if I had talent to sing and to act, why wasn't that enough? — Barbra Streisand

I want the best product for my audience, and if I don't care 100%, who will? It's my name, my likeness that goes out there. — Barbra Streisand

What reaches an audience is honesty. If you're saying something truthful that's supposed to be a funny line, it's going to be funny. And if it's supposed to be a serious line, it's going to be serious. But, I don't think there's a distinction between how you play drama or comedy, if it's based in the truth. — Barbra Streisand

Oh God, don't envy me, I have my own pains. — Barbra Streisand

Believe in the power of your voice! Be yourself. Everyone is unique. — Barbra Streisand

There is nothing more important in life than love. — Barbra Streisand

I tell you what I envy about people in love - I'd love it if someone knew me I mean really knew me. What I like what I'm afraid of what kind of toothpaste I use. - Rose Morgan — Barbra Streisand

I don't know why it is that we need to denigrate, to knock down. It's so unhealthy for the culture. It's so sick. — Barbra Streisand

I always wear the same thing at home. I can't be bothered with jewelry. My pants have elastic waists. I like to be comfortable. There are so many more important things to worry about. — Barbra Streisand

I love things that are indescribable, like the taste of an avocado or the smell of a gardenia. — Barbra Streisand

The dream - you never achieve it. The excitement of life lies in the hope, in the striving for something rather than the attainment. — Barbra Streisand

Moviemakers can be late to a subject, or afraid, but often they are brave and ahead of their time. — Barbra Streisand

What does it mean when people applaud? Should I give 'em money? Say thank you? Lift my dress? The lack of applause - that I can respond to. — Barbra Streisand

What is exciting is not for one person to be stronger than the other ... but for two people to have met their match and yet they are equally as stubborn, as obstinate, as passionate, as crazy as the other. — Barbra Streisand

How can we accept a situation in which there are no longer orchestras, choruses, libraries or art classes to nourish our children? We need more support for the arts, not less
particularly to make this rich world available to young people whose vision is choked by a stark reality. How many children, who have no other outlet in their lives for their grief, have found solace in an instrument to play or a canvas to paint on? When you take into consideration the development of the human heart, soul and imagination, don't the arts take on just as much importance as math or science? — Barbra Streisand

I am a nice person. I care about my driver having lunch, you know ... — Barbra Streisand

I've considered having my nose fixed. But I didn't trust anyone enough. If I could do it myself with a mirror. — Barbra Streisand

Why does a woman work ten years to change a man, then complain he's not the man she married? — Barbra Streisand

On a very basic level, many people think celebrities have too much already, so we shouldn't be entitled to our political opinions. — Barbra Streisand

You've got to discover you, what you do, and trust it. — Barbra Streisand

I don't like talking about myself and I don't like talking about the work. — Barbra Streisand

It always gave me the creeps when I saw performers who desperately wanted the audience to like them. That's not what I'm about. — Barbra Streisand

I was raised on the streets, in hot, steamy Brooklyn, with stifled air. — Barbra Streisand

How I wish we lived in a time when laws were not
necessary to safeguard us from discrimination — Barbra Streisand

You don't keep a dog and bark yourself. — Barbra Streisand

I started going to acting school when I was 14, and I would always have my own take on things. — Barbra Streisand

I can say, I am terribly frightened and fear is terrible and awful and it makes me uncomfortable, so I won't do that because it makes me uncomfortable. Or I could say get used to being uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable doing something that's risky. But so what? Do you want to stagnate and just be comfortable? — Barbra Streisand

My mother told me I should be a secretary, but I wanted to be an actress from when I was very young. — Barbra Streisand

I still like my antique clothes. — Barbra Streisand

Everybody's frightened a bit. But how many of us just go through the fear and do it anyway? — Barbra Streisand

When I was a teenager in New York, I was buying antique clothes. I still am. — Barbra Streisand

A man is commanding - a woman is demanding. A man is forceful - a woman is pushy. A man is uncompromising - a woman is a ball-breaker. A man is a perfectionist - a woman's a pain in the ass. He's assertive - she's aggressive. He strategizes - she manipulates. He shows leadership - she's controlling. He's committed - she's obsessed. He's persevering - she's relentless. He sticks to his guns - she's stubborn. If a man wants to get it right, he's looked up to and respected. If a woman wants to get it right, she's difficult and impossible. — Barbra Streisand

It is true, even people with painful childhoods ... grow up to be more interesting people. So, there's always a positive to a negative. — Barbra Streisand

I guess if you have an original take on life, or something about you is original, you don't have to study people who came before you. You don't have to mimic anybody. You just have a gut feeling inside, an instinct that tells you what's right for you, and you can't do it in any other way. — Barbra Streisand

I won't leave forks in the dish rack overnight because I believe that the tines attract demonic energy. — Barbra Streisand

Why is it men are permitted to be obsessed about their work, but women are only permitted to be obsessed about men? — Barbra Streisand

I have one son. Of everything I've done in my life, nothing matches the feeling of having life growing inside you. — Barbra Streisand

The artist as citizen is here to stay. — Barbra Streisand

Success to me is having ten honeydew melons and eating only the top half of each slice. — Barbra Streisand

My mother never really thought I could become anything. — Barbra Streisand

Performing, for me, has always been a very inner process. — Barbra Streisand

I don't feel like a legend. I feel like a work in progress. — Barbra Streisand

In the music business, we all do different things, but we sit there and admire other people who can write a song differently or sing differently. It's not so competitive. — Barbra Streisand

Just like my father, I've always loved education. In school I was a member of the honor society. — Barbra Streisand

I don't enjoy public performances and being up on a stage. I don't enjoy the glamour. Like tonight, I am up on stage and my feet hurt. — Barbra Streisand

I think when I was younger, I wanted to be a star, until I became a star, and then it's a lot of work. It's work to be a star. I don't enjoy the stardom part. I only enjoy the creative process. — Barbra Streisand

I go by instinct - i don't worry about experience. — Barbra Streisand

I've always liked working really hard and then doing nothing in particular. So, consequently, I didn't overexpose myself; I guess I maintained a kind of mystery. I wasn't ambitious. — Barbra Streisand

My friend Quincy Jones says we won our first Grammys together in 1963. I have no recollection. I don't even remember the room. When he showed me the picture, I remembered what I wore. But it's like awards don't mean anything. — Barbra Streisand

I find George Bush and Dick Cheney frightening, Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft frightening. — Barbra Streisand

It is sort of boring to stay in the same spot. You know, I didn't set out to become the first to do this, the first to do that. It was just that my interests were so diversified. — Barbra Streisand

I'd take out a joint and light it. First, just faking it. Then I started lighting live joints, passing them around to the band, you know. I was great, it relieved all my tensions. And I ended up with the greatest supply of grass ever. Other acts up and down the Strip heard about what I was doing - Little Anthony and the Imperials, people like that - and started sending me the best dope in the world. I never ran out. — Barbra Streisand

Myths are a waste of time. They prevent progression. — Barbra Streisand

It's like an American tradition. A person gets successful and then he's supposed to change for the worse. It's silly. — Barbra Streisand

A man who graduated high in his class at Yale Law School and made partnership in a top law firm would be celebrated. A man who invested wisely would be admired, but a woman who accomplishes this is treated with suspicion. — Barbra Streisand

I never sing in the shower either. — Barbra Streisand

I wish I could be like Shaw who once read a bad review of one of his plays, called the critic and said: 'I have your review in front of me and soon it will be behind me.' — Barbra Streisand

Art finds a way to be constructive. It becomes heat in cold places; it becomes light in dark places. — Barbra Streisand

It's very often the artist who gives a voice to the voiceless by speaking up when no one else will. — Barbra Streisand

I got sent to a health camp when I was about 6 years old, and we all had to wear the same starchy blue uniform. The lady who took care of me after school knit me a burgundy sweater. It was the only thing that gave me any individuality. — Barbra Streisand

I just became a singer, because I could never get work as an actress. — Barbra Streisand

I'm not weird, just different from people who aren't different. — Barbra Streisand

I also have intense relationships with furniture ... probably because we practically had none when I was growing up. — Barbra Streisand

I'm not that ambitious any more. I just like my privacy. I wish I really wasn't talked about at all. — Barbra Streisand

My mother had a great voice. Not like mine, not like my sister's, not like my son's - a high soprano voice, but like a bird. I mean, really beautiful. — Barbra Streisand

Marlon Brando. The finest actor who ever lived. He was my idol when I was 13. He's done enough work to last two lifetimes. Everything I do, I think: Can Brando play this with me? — Barbra Streisand

what with the follies and an indecent proposal it's been quite a night — Barbra Streisand

Art is the signature of a generation; artists have a way of defining the times. — Barbra Streisand

Being a woman in music was fine, but when I wanted to direct, I was poking my head into a man's world. — Barbra Streisand

They're called 'angels' because they're in heaven until the reviews come out. — Barbra Streisand

A human being is only interesting if he's in contact with himself. — Barbra Streisand

You know, I can't remember my good reviews. I remember negative ones. They stay in my mind. — Barbra Streisand

We cannot let the right wing roll back more than thirty years of social progress. — Barbra Streisand

Our role as artist is more controversial now because there are those, claiming the absolute authority of religion, who detest much of our work as much as they detest most of our politics. Instead of rationally debating subjects like abortion or gay rights, they condemn as immoral those who favor choice and tolerance. They disown their own dark side and magnify everyone else's until, at the extreme, doctors are murdered in the name of protecting life. I wonder, who is this God they invoke, who is so petty and mean? Is God really against gun control and food stamps for poor children? — Barbra Streisand

What is dangerous about the far right is not that it takes religion seriously - most of us do - but rather that it condemns all other spiritual choices - the Buddhist, the Jew, the Muslim, and many others who consider themselves to be good Christians. The wall of separation between church and state is needed precisely because religion, like art, is too important a part of the human experience to be choked by the hands of censors. — Barbra Streisand

It is every woman's dream to be some man's dream woman. — Barbra Streisand

I believe in love and lust and sex and romance. I don't want everything to add up to some perfect equation. I want mess and chaos. I want someone to go crazy out of his mind for me. I want to feel passion and heat and sweat and madness. I want valenties and cupids and all of that crap. I WANT IT ALL — Barbra Streisand

And remember, this was a president (George W. Bush) who was selected by the Supreme Court rather than the people. — Barbra Streisand

New York critics - I hear when one of them watched "A Star Is Born", he talked back to the screen. — Barbra Streisand

Why am I so famous? What am I doing right? What are the others doing wrong? — Barbra Streisand

Doubt can motivate you, so don't be afraid of it. Confidence and doubt are at two ends of the scale, and you need both. They balance each other out. — Barbra Streisand

I don't think I'm tough in a so called tough way. I'm tough on myself. — Barbra Streisand

Stay true to yourself. People respond to authenticity. — Barbra Streisand

Thank God there were a couple of people in my life who said, Go on, go on - you can do it! — Barbra Streisand

I'm a work in progress. — Barbra Streisand

Sometimes, when you work with mediocre talents, they feel entitled. They act like stars. Genuinely talented people don't. — Barbra Streisand

I was a personality before I became a person - I am simple, complex, generous, selfish, unattractive, beautiful, lazy and driven. — Barbra Streisand

I don't care what you say about me. Just be sure to spell my name wrong. — Barbra Streisand

The audience is the barometer of the truth. — Barbra Streisand

You don't ask a man, 'Do you want to be in control [of your job]?' You assume he wants control. Why would a woman be any different? — Barbra Streisand

For me, one of the most disturbing elements of the right wing's political agenda is that it believes that there is one correct spiritual and moral path for all people to follow. The danger inherent in this is its explicit refusal to accept anyone who happens to lead a different lifestyle, and the condemnation of those who differ. — Barbra Streisand

Just imagine how boring life would be if we were all the same. My idea of a perfect world is one in which we really appreciated each other's differences: Short, tall; Democrat, Republican; black, white; gay, straight-a world in which all of us are equal, but definitely not the same. — Barbra Streisand

Progress, whatever your definition of it, is not inevitable. — Barbra Streisand