Bette Davis Quotes & Sayings

I've always liked men better than women. — Bette Davis

There are new words now that excuse everybody. Give me the good old days of heroes and villains, the people you can bravo or hiss. There was a truth to them that all the slick credulity of today cannot touch. — Bette Davis

Good actors I've worked with all started out making faces in a mirror, and you keep making faces all your life. — Bette Davis

Being called very, very difficult is the beginning of success. Until you're called very, very difficult you're really nobody at all. — Bette Davis

We movie stars all end up by ourselves. Who knows? Maybe we want to. — Bette Davis

I have always felt proud of my Oscars and my numerous
nominations. This pride is due to the fact it was the
result of voters from the members of my own
profession. This, of course, is a great compliment for one's
work. I hope each winner of an Oscar is as thrilled as
I was when I received mine. — Bette Davis

I'm the nicest goddamn dame that ever lived. — Bette Davis

What a fool I was to come to Hollywood where they only understand platinum blondes and where legs are more important than talent. — Bette Davis

Success only breeds a new goal — Bette Davis

If everybody likes you, you're pretty dull. — Bette Davis

If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent. — Bette Davis

Joan Crawford is a movie star. I am an actress. — Bette Davis

With the newspaper strike on, I wouldn't consider dying. — Bette Davis

Never, never trust anyone who asks for white wine. It means they're phonies. — Bette Davis

I was so uncomfortable at a party recently when the conversation droned on about women who are constantly getting married. I was on the edge of my chair, close to squirming in embarrassment because I myself was guilty of four husbands. I finally leaned forward and squeaked, 'But one died! — Bette Davis

Hollywood always wanted me to be pretty, but I fought for realism. — Bette Davis

You know what I'm going to have on my gravestone? 'She did it the hard way.' — Bette Davis

Getting old isn't for sissies. — Bette Davis

I never wished I'd been a man. I always felt like a woman and wanted to be a woman. I wanted to be fulfilled professionally and personally, as a woman. There are some who might say I had penis envy, but I only had penis admiration. — Bette Davis

May each of my grandsons know, at an early age, what his life's ambition is
and may he be successful in his pursuit of that goal. — Bette Davis

One can make more enemies as a female with a brain I think. — Bette Davis

In this rat-race everybody's guilty till proved innocent! — Bette Davis

Once the love bug wears off, as it inevitably does, you are shocked to discover that you really didn't know the object of your affections at all. We know this to be so, even as we repeat the same mistake over and over and over. — Bette Davis

It's a very independent male creature that lives alone, and a lot of independent females who live alone. It's all very sad but it's much easier for both sexes to do it this way nowadays. — Bette Davis

The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he's dead. — Bette Davis

Locations are all tough, all miserable. I never left the sound stage for 18 years at Warners. We never went outside the studio, not even for big scenes. — Bette Davis

You should know me well enough by now to know I don't ask for things I don't think I can get. — Bette Davis

Acting should be bigger than life. Scripts should be bigger than life. It should all be bigger than life. — Bette Davis

Playing our parts. Yes, we all have to do that and from childhood on, I have found that my own character has been much harder to play worthily and far harder at times to comprehend than any of the roles I have portrayed. — Bette Davis

I want to die with my high heels on, still in action. — Bette Davis

Life is a jest; and all things show it. I thought so once; but now I know it. — Bette Davis

I didn't forget your breakfast. I didn't bring your breakfast. Because you didn't eat your din-din. — Bette Davis

I believe one should be a woman at home. — Bette Davis

People stood on their chairs, cheering and waving. And it was all for me! Waves of love flooded the stage and washed over me. I started to cry. The sweetness of such a moment is impossible to describe. One is both lover and beloved ... I'd found the one true, enduring romance of my life. — Bette Davis

There may be a heaven, but if Joan Crawford is there, I'm not going. — Bette Davis

Success is built on disappointment, and disappointment is inherent in all success. — Bette Davis

This became a credo of mine ... attempt the impossible in order to improve your work. — Bette Davis

At 50, I thought proudly: Here we are, half century! Being 60 was fairly frightening. You want to know how I spent my 70th birthday? I put on a completely black face, a fuzzy black Afro wig, wore black clothes and hung a black wreath on my door. — Bette Davis

That's me: an old kazoo with some sparklers. — Bette Davis

There is a certain ecstasy in wanting things you can't get. — Bette Davis

Everybody has a heart. Except some people. — Bette Davis

Brought up to respect the conventions, love had to end in marriage. I'm afraid it did. — Bette Davis

The world's all full of thoughts about wars and space, and tragedies to the world. That's what writers are thinking about because that's what the world is thinking about. — Bette Davis

Oh Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars. - Now, Voyager — Bette Davis

I'd like ta kiss ya, but I just washed my hair. — Bette Davis

I have eyes like a bullfrog, a neck like an ostrich and long, limp hair. You just have to be good to survive with that equipment. — Bette Davis

I do not regret one professional enemy I have made. Any actor who doesn't dare to make an enemy should get out of the business. — Bette Davis

I think men have got to change an awful lot. They still prefer the little woman. — Bette Davis

When a man gives his opinion, he's a man. When a woman gives her opinion, she's a bitch. — Bette Davis

To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lovely labor, to be given the chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy. — Bette Davis

I guess I'm larger than life. That's my problem. — Bette Davis

I've lost my faith in science. — Bette Davis

Without wonder and insight, acting is just a trade. With it, it becomes creation. — Bette Davis

I was never very interested in boys - and there were plenty of them - vying with one another to see how many famous women they would get into the hay. — Bette Davis

Wave after wave of love flooded the stage and washed over me, the beginning of the one great durable romance of my life. — Bette Davis

The male ego with few exceptions is elephantine to start with. — Bette Davis

I will not retire while I've still got my legs and my makeup box. — Bette Davis

Strong women only marry weak men. — Bette Davis

One can be respected with the truth in Hollywood just as much as anywhere else you know or else I wouldn't have had a career. — Bette Davis

Dramatic art in her opinion is knowing how to fill a sweater. — Bette Davis

Technicolor makes me look like death warmed over. — Bette Davis

If everyone likes you, you're not doing it right. — Bette Davis

An affair now and then is good for a marriage. It adds spice, stops it from getting boring ... I ought to know. — Bette Davis

You know what nostalgia is, don't you? It's basically a matter of recalling the fun without reliving the pain. — Bette Davis

I was thought to be 'stuck up.' I wasn't. I was just sure of myself. This is and always has been an unforgivable quality to the unsure. — Bette Davis

I have been uncompromising, peppery, intractable, monomaniacal, tactless, volatile, and oftentimes disagreeable ... I suppose I'm larger than life. — Bette Davis

I was the Marlon Brando of my generation. — Bette Davis

I wouldnt piss on Joan Crawford if she were on fire — Bette Davis

I will never be below the title. — Bette Davis

Oh, don't let's ask for the moon. We've already got the stars. — Bette Davis

Old age ain't for sissies — Bette Davis

A sure way to lose happiness, I found, is to want it at the expense of everything else. — Bette Davis

I'd marry again if I found a man who had fifteen million dollars, would sign over half to me, and guarantee that he'd be dead within a year. — Bette Davis

Without discipline and detachment, an actor is an emotional slob, spilling his insides out. This abandonment is having an unfortunate vogue. It is tasteless, formless, absurd. Without containment there is no art. All this vomiting and wheezing and bursting at the seams is no more great acting than the convulsions of raving maniacs. — Bette Davis

I firmly believe, however, that if your children have never hated you, you have failed as a parent. — Bette Davis

You can lose everything
but you can't lose your talent! — Bette Davis

I may not have been wearing a mink coat, but I was traveling with a dog. That should have made you think I was an actress! — Bette Davis

In this business, until you're known as a monster you're not a star. — Bette Davis

She did it the hard way. — Bette Davis

The best time I ever had with Joan Crawford was when I pushed her down the stairs in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? — Bette Davis

Love is not enough. It must be the foundation, the cornerstone- but not the complete structure. It is much too pliable, to yielding. — Bette Davis

I've been lucky. I'll be lucky again. — Bette Davis

You've got to know someone pretty well to hate them. — Bette Davis

You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good ... Joan Crawford is dead. Good. — Bette Davis

Pray to God and say the lines. — Bette Davis

From the moment I was six I felt sexy. And let me tell you it was hell, sheer hell, waiting to do something about it. — Bette Davis

Your luck is how you treat people. — Bette Davis

If you've never been hated by your child, you've never been a parent. — Bette Davis

I went back to work because someone had to pay for the groceries. — Bette Davis

They say that in Hollywood one can't be honest, but I think honesty counts in Hollywood just as much as it does anywhere else. I think it's just too much trouble to be dishonest and keep up with yourself. — Bette Davis

Pleasure of love lasts but a moment, Pain of love lasts a lifetime. — Bette Davis

I wanted to be the first to win three Oscars, but Miss Hepburn has done it. Actually it hasn't been done. Miss Hepburn only won half an Oscar. If they'd given me half an Oscar I would have thrown it back in their faces. You see, I'm an Aries. I never lose. — Bette Davis

The secret of marriage is: separate bedrooms and separate bathrooms. — Bette Davis

Old age ain't no place for sissies. — Bette Davis

People often become actresses because of something they dislike about themselves: They pretend they are someone else. — Bette Davis

There was more good acting at Hollywood parties than ever appeared on the screen. — Bette Davis

Sex is God's joke on human beings. — Bette Davis

It's better to be hated for who you are, than to be loved for someone you're not. It's a sign of your worth sometimes, if you're hated by the right people. — Bette Davis

It's a rare man who can stand being around an intelligent woman, let alone married to her. — Bette Davis

You mustn't miss the moment. There's only one first sailing into Rio harbor. — Bette Davis