Bergen Quotes & Sayings

After 13 years of life on the half shell in Hollywood, I have made a trip where I wasn't a tourist. — Edgar Bergen

Invite characters of surprising and moral character, or at least those who grapple with what is right or those who make decisions that shock. — David Bergen

As a writer, you write the book, you give it to your editor, it's copy edited, it's published, it's thrown out there, and then there's a response. — David Bergen

Smoking ages you quicker than almost anything else. — Polly Bergen

Imitation is the sincerest form of insecurity. — Polly Bergen

Leadership is more likely to be assumed by the aggressive than by the able, and those who scramble to the top are more often motivated by their own inner torments. — Bergen Evans

We had to have a star each week.. Possibly our program being on Sunday and having a little fun with the Bible was dangerous. — Edgar Bergen

I always have a book that I use that somehow inspires my novels. — David Bergen

David Bergen is a master of taut, spare prose that's both erotic and hypnotic ... — Miriam Toews

'Jersey Boys' was a lot of running around and a lot of energy, but it was more stylized movement. — Erich Bergen

Every bar mitzvah I ever went to was, 'Here comes 'Oh, What a Night.' — Erich Bergen

I dropped out of high school three days into my senior year because I hated it because New York City public school is a mess. I certainly wasn't one for sitting in a classroom. Then I went off to college to North Carolina School of the Arts, then quit that after two years. — Erich Bergen

Men say they love independence in a woman, but they don't waste a second demolishing it brick by brick. — Candice Bergen

Most Muslims don't want to live in some Taliban-style utopia, which is what bin Laden and allied groups are offering. — Peter Bergen

In 1970, at the age of 14, I entered a short story contest offering a grand prize of one dollar. I won. This was my first foray into writing fiction. I loved reading and thought that it shouldn't be so hard to write a story. — David Bergen

Mel Blanc passed away in '89, and they held auditions, and I did my first job [as Porky Pig] in 1990. — Bob Bergen

Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance? — Edgar Bergen

It (the dash ) is a comfortable punctuation mark since even the most rigorous critic can seldom claim that any particular example of it is a misuse. Its overuse is its greatest danger, and the writer who can't resist dashes may be suspected of uncoordinated thinking. — Bergen Evans

I met you under the balloon, on the occasion of your return from Norway; you asked if it was mine; I said it was. The balloon, I said, is a spontaneous autobiographical disclosure, having to do with the unease I felt at your absence, and with sexual deprivation, but now that your visit to Bergen has been terminated, it is no longer necessary or appropriate. Removal of the balloon was easy; trailer trucks carried away the depleted fabric, which is now stored in West Virginia, awaiting some other time of unhappiness, some time, perhaps, when we are angry with one another. — Donald Barthelme

Early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
Early bird gets the worm, but the second worm gets to live.
Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy. — Edgar Bergen

I like characters who are contradictory. — David Bergen

I very much believe in rescuing animals, not buying them. — Candice Bergen

At the age of twenty, having published nothing and having had little guidance in my reading, I decided that I wanted to write. — David Bergen

I couldn't hold it together today. George Clooney asked me if I was OK, and I practically collapsed. I couldn't stop crying, I had to go off sobbing like an idiot. — Candice Bergen

As soon as my foot is in the light onstage, I am home. It is what I love to do. It is what I have always loved to do. — Polly Bergen

That is the essence of a witch-hunt, that any questioning of the evidence or the procedures in itself constitutes proof of complicity. — Bergen Evans

When I was young, they just gave me the lead. And when I got old, they wouldn't see me at all. — Polly Bergen

Show me where Stalin is buried and I'll show you a Communist Plot. — Edgar Bergen

I was getting offers. I had just turned them down. Then I realized I should be grateful that at age 54, people were still offering me film roles. — Candice Bergen

In my brief writing life, it means I am still lucky that I have at least one more novel to complete. I do not expect that a story will arrive just because it is time to write another novel. It doesn't happen that way. — David Bergen

It's somewhat of a contradiction, .. I guess the quieter the voice, the more necessary it is to push it. It's not going to leap out at you and scream. I also can't control how a book is marketed. To say the book marketing is aggressive, fine, I'm happy with that. Push the book. That doesn't mean that my personality or writing style changes. — David Bergen

Self-acceptance has been a blessed by-product of middle age. — Candice Bergen

Baltimore is one of the most beautiful towns, really. And trust me, I don't say that about every place. There is just something so quaint, old and beautiful about this place. — Polly Bergen

I always said, 'A blind dog with three legs could get a standing ovation for singing 'I'm Still Here!' — Polly Bergen

Books were seen as a waste of time. What was the point, unless you were reading for information? To lose oneself in a book was to be slightly wacky, a little greedy and ultimately slothful. There was no value. You couldn't make money from reading a book. A book did not clean bathrooms and waxed floors. It did not put the garden in. You couldn't have a conversation while reading. It was arrogant and alienated others. In short, those who read were wasteful and haughty and incapable of living in the real world. They were dreamers. — David Bergen

That's the novelist's job: to peel back the layers and look underneath. — David Bergen

I was asking Charlie the most important questions, and you heard the answers. — Edgar Bergen

There is wisdom in the selection of wisdom ... — Bergen Evans

Books in general are great, but I'm a fiction lover, and I will continue to do it. — David Bergen

I gave up writing for seven years (very biblical) and picked it up again, still clueless and still seeking the exotic, when I was twenty-one. — David Bergen

Failure is essential. Trial and error is necessary. — David Bergen

Nobody seems to know yet how television is going to affect the radio, movies, love, housekeeping or the church, but it has definitely revived vaudeville. — Edgar Bergen

Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt. — Bergen Evans

The secret I've lived by ever since I started earning money is this: Always buy a house with an extra bedroom adjoining the master. And that's always my closet. — Polly Bergen

If you want to get into the business of doing voices for cartoons, you've got to be a good actor. It's all about acting. It's not about the voice. The voice is just one part of what you bring to the character. — Bob Bergen

So the insurgency was born in a perfect storm of American errors--not establishing order; not providing the semblance of any government; confirming to the Sunnis who had once lorded it over Iraq's Shia majority that they were officially the underdogs; and throwing hundreds of thousands of soldiers onto the streets in an economy where the jobless rate was around 50 percent, while simultaneously ensuring that there was an unlimited supply of weaponry at hand for those angry young men. — Peter Bergen

You find out your mistakes from an audience that pays admission. — Edgar Bergen

I may not have written the stories that I've written if I hadn't ended up in Niverville. I don't know; I don't know. How can you know? — David Bergen

Words are one of our chief means of adjusting to all the situations of life. The better control we have over words, the more successful our adjustment is likely to be. — Bergen Evans

I started having a lot of problems with my voice in my mid-30s. — Polly Bergen

Bergen, and Oldfield. The — James Ellroy

The best way to be beautiful is to choose your parents well. — Candice Bergen

What fascinates me as a writer is the stuff underneath, To me, what drives a novel is the curiosity behind the character and the depths that you want to find in that character. — David Bergen

But Charlie, Charlie, how can we ever really know anything? Charlie, what or who is God? — Edgar Bergen

An editor is an accomplice, looking in from the outside. That objective view is essential. We don't write in a vacuum, and we don't publish in a vacuum. — David Bergen

I think a construction project for me is like writing a novel. I can't do the project unless I can envision sort of the whole structure and see what the end result might be. — David Bergen

I saw my first Broadway show when I was 10 years old. I saw 'Big: The Musical' and I remember going out to dinner with my mom afterward and reading the souvenir program like crazy! — Erich Bergen

So many people are working in vaudeville today that I looked for three weeks to book enough acts for an hour bill and didn't have them until the night before we opened in Buffalo and money was no object! — Edgar Bergen

OK, magic boy, let's see who you really are. — Edgar Bergen

Way back in 1989, I got lucky with my first published story when it was selected for the Journey Prize anthology. Then I got lucky three more times. It is astounding to see how many writers published in the anthology have gone on to publish great story collections and novels. The anthology is a windfall for both writer and reader. — David Bergen

Legislators who are of even average intelligence stand out among their colleagues ... A cultured college president has become as much a rarity as a literate newspaper publisher. A financier interested in economics is as exceptional as a labor leader interested in the labor movement. For the most part our leaders are merely following out in front; they [only] marshal us in the way that we are going. — Bergen Evans

People see you as an object, not as a person, and they project a set of expectations onto you. People who don't have it think beauty is a blessing, but actually it sets you apart. — Candice Bergen

The mere abhorrence of vice is not a virtue at all. — Bergen Evans

All characters have a voice but not all voices have character. And it's all about character and personality. — Bob Bergen

The most difficult part of being a mother was to observe the mistakes of one's children: the foolish loves, the desperate solitude and alienation, the lack of will, the gullibility, the joyous and naive leaps into the unknown, the ignorance, the panicky choices and the utter determination. — David Bergen

Bin Laden comes out of a business background - he studied public administration and economics at university, and he worked for his family company, which was obviously a rather successful enterprise. — Peter L. Bergen

As an actor, when you are called upon to do a job, you are oftentimes convinced you can't do it. You say to yourself 'I don't have the talent for this; they are going to figure out I'm a fraud.' And then you watch how the others do it, and fake your confidence. — Erich Bergen

I've never told you the story of Alice in Wonderland, have I? — Edgar Bergen

raiding parties and pirate crews. This is in stark — Lars Bergen

I certainly love doing comedy and feel most comfortable near it. — Candice Bergen

It suddenly struck me - I'm 70 years old. I wonder if I could possibly end my life the way I started it: doing the most joyful thing I ever did, which is to sing. — Polly Bergen

when you conclude a paper, you should always close a door and open a window — Benjamin K. Bergen

Would I like to play the lead? You bet. Absolutely. But I get to have fun and I don't have to shave when I go to work. — Bob Bergen

Bury the shit when you can and fess up if you can't. — Margaux Bergen

The American and British soldiers who liberated the dying inmates from camps in Germany believed that they had discovered the horrors of Nazism. The images their photographers and cameramen captured of the corpses and the living skeletons at Bergen-Belsen and Buchenwald seemed to convey the worst crimes of Hitler...this was far from the truth. The worst was in the ruins of Warsaw, or the fields of Treblinka, or the marshes of Belarus, or the pits of Babi Yar. — Timothy Snyder

As a writer, I'm always aware of the fact that there are so many books out there. — David Bergen

Our objective is to begin a national conversation to better support individuals and families living with ASD in Canada. The Summit will review the recent National Needs Assessment Survey and provide leaders with a better understanding of ASD surveillance across the country. We are pleased that Minister Bergen will be part of this important discussion. — Cynthia Carroll

I stepped into the bedroom where he was killed and looked up at the ceiling, where you could still see the patterns of blood that had spurted from bin Laden's head when the bullet fired by a U.S. Navy SEAL tore through the terrorist leader's face. — Peter L. Bergen

At one point people in al Qaeda were actually drawing monthly paychecks when they were based in Sudan. — Peter L. Bergen

I get tips from Bob Gaudio. And one of my songs somehow caught the attention of one of my idols, Marty Panzer, who wrote big hits for Barry Manilow. So two guys who inspired me to write lyrics are now teaching me to write. — Erich Bergen

I saw several actresses play the part. I did not in fact, as far as I know, do anything that any of the other actresses did. I don't think actresses do that. I think that what we do is we see a role as a role, we don't see it as a person. We look at the role and think, 'What can I, as an actor, bring to that part? — Polly Bergen

There is an elegance to knowing who you are that will help you unfold a sweet tolerance for yourself. Knowing and liking yourself will then allow you to be kind and compassionate to others, deeply aware that they want the same things: love and contentment. — Margaux Bergen

Living in LA is like not having a date on Saturday night. — Candice Bergen

Authors are magpies, echoing each other's words and seizing avidly on anything that glitters. — Bergen Evans

We climbed the stairs to the third floor, where Osama bin Laden died early in the morning of May 2, 2011. — Peter L. Bergen

The Wizard of Oz." "No, no, no," said Sophie. She quickly — Lara Bergen

The most important thing in life is your family. There are days you love them, and others you don't. But, in the end, they're the people you always come home to. Sometimes it's the family you're born into and sometimes it's the one you make for yourself. — Candice Bergen

For people who want to get into the voiceover industry, even if you want to get into commercial, you need to become a really, really good actor. — Bob Bergen

I like Bergen County because it's nice and quiet. It's beautiful, and I can get to the city way quick. — Wyclef Jean

Stoicism is the wisdom of madness and cynicism the madness of wisdom. — Bergen Evans

The IMPAC is a terribly important award. — David Bergen

Not that we didn't have close relationships with our parents - I'm very close to my mom - but parents didn't think anything of going off for a few weeks and leaving their kids. — Candice Bergen

I admit that Post-it note sheets that adhere to virtually any surface are now my substitute of choice for retention. — Candice Bergen

The heavens were inexhaustible, it had rained every day since the beginning of September and except for a couple of hours I hadn't seen the sun for what would soon be eight months. The streets were deserted apart from a few people who rushed past hugging the walls, in Bergen it was vital to get from A to B as fast as you could. — Karl Ove Knausgard

Often it is important to listen to what people aren't saying. — Peter L. Bergen

I was fanatically ambitious. All I ever wanted was to be a star. I didn't want to be a singer. I didn't want to be an actress. I wanted to be a star. — Polly Bergen

The terrorists who have succeeded in carrying out spectacular attacks against Western targets in the past have been college-educated, technically proficient men who are capable of manufacturing and deploying chemical, radiological, and biological weapons. Al Qaeda attracts the kind of highly educated men who one day might be able to pull off such an attack. — Peter Bergen

I'm fortunate in that I'm what you call a utility player, in that I can take a scene, if there's five or six minor characters in a scene, that need voice and personality [and] I can supply those characters. — Bob Bergen

I usually submit a novel at a certain number of words, and when I've finished working with my editor, the novel is longer than when I submitted it. I need my editor to help me open up the story. — David Bergen

Well, a friend in need is a friend indeed. — Edgar Bergen