Bette Quotes & Sayings

Even if you forget everything else I want you to always remember that you are a person of value, and you have a friend who loved you enough to give you his most valued possession. — Bette Greene

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

It was like that. Sometimes I'd go for a period - days or weeks - without feeling the full sweep of my loss, and then as unexpected as a thunderclap, the realization would rip the protective coating from my senses. Maybe that's the way it is with trick knees and aging griefs. Totally pain free one moment and absorbingly painful the next. — Bette Greene

All I know is that growing up hurts too much. Growing down is what I'd really like to do. Be little enough again so it would be perfectly natural to be protected from the wind and the rain - and the world. — Bette Greene

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

I wondered if a blessing is still a blessing if it lasts for only a little while. — Bette Greene

As a female I think it's a terrible hindrance in business. I think it's a terrible hindrance for any female to have a lot of intelligence in private life, but I think in business sometimes it's even worse because there's deep resentment. — Bette Davis

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

You must not use wood to put out the fire. — Bette Lord

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

I always loved the bad girls in the movies. I loved Bette Davis; I loved Katherine Hepburn. I loved Ava Gardner. — Imelda May

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

Basically, I believe the world is a jungle, and if it's not a bit of a jungle in the home, a child cannot possibly be fit to enter the outside world. — Bette Davis

There's only one way to work
like hell. — 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

I have been at war from the beginning. I've never looked back before. I've never had the time and it has always seemed so dangerous. To look back is to relax one's vigil. — Bette Davis

The only thing Madonna will ever do like a virgin is give birth in a stable. — Bette Midler

I firmly believe that with the right footwear one can rule the world. — Bette Midler

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

The only way you can become a legend is in your coffin — Bette Davis

The [film] industry is an ecosystem that's sick. — Bette Midler

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

I used to be Snow White but then I drifted. — Bette Davies

A secret, like a chore, always seems to lead to another, one even more troublesome than the first. — Bette Lord

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

The out-of-work actor wears out more than shoe leather. The very sensibilities that make him an artist are shattered by the disregard he is shown as a human being. — Bette Davis

As sorry as I feel for myself, I feel even sorrier for her. I know she's afraid of staying and equally as frightened of going. Just as this land is a part of me, this house is a part of her. Selling off these things piece by piece is like cutting away chunks of her heart. I promised to make it better, but only God knows whether or not that's a promise I'll be able to keep. — Bette Lee Crosby

Sold my soul. Bought these devil chains. — Bette Midler

I was inspired more by early Bette Midler. I do wear a fancy dress and very high heels - and extra high hair. My goal is to obliterate all earnestness. — Ana Gasteyer

I'd love to play a femme fatale in a film noir. I'm thinking of one of those roles that Lauren Bacall or Bette Davis might have played. What I wouldn't like is to suddenly find myself being cast, as many senior actresses seem to be, as the abbess in a convent. — Diana Quick

Keep in mind that life produces no maestros, only students of varying shades of ineptitude. — Bette Greene

I grew up on Bette Davis movies, and Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe. — Charlize Theron

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

I had a hard-scrabble childhood with my parents. I have a lot of baggage. To come down to the footlights and accept the audience's affection inside a Broadway theater - that didn't come easily to me. — Bette Midler

My favourite actors are all dead or dying. I just love Jimmy Stewart, Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn - I was named after her - and Cary Grant. I just love old black and white movies and the stars in them. It must have been a great time to be in Hollywood. — Katharine Isabelle

I will never be below the title. — Bette Davis

I learned to accept the audience's happiness for me, which is one of the hardest things for me to learn. — Bette Midler

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

I always knew I was going to be successful in some way with films. I don't know why. I had no particular talent, but I always knew I was going to be sitting in a dining room with Lucille Ball and at a cocktail party with Bette Davis. — Robert Osborne

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? — Bette Midler

If everybody likes you, you are not a very interesting person. — Bette Davis

If you do a musical, it's really thrilling and it's a lot of work, but it's very rewarding. I would say, for me, what I like best is what I do, which is, I call it vaudeville, I call it live, I call it in concert, I call it what Bette Midler does, and what Garland did for years, and Ethel Merman. — Debbie Reynolds

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

What is genius, anyway, if it isn't the ability to give an adequate response to a great challenge? — Bette Greene

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

The casting couch? There's only one of us who ever made it to stardom without it, and that was Bette Davis. — Claudette Colbert

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

When I heard the gunshots, though, I knew - knew beyond the shadow of a doubt - that somewhere in Los Angeles Bette Davis was on the prowl and packing heat. ("Shadows From The Screen") — Richard Valley

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

I've been close to Bette Davis for thirty-eight years - and I have the cigarette burns to prove it. — Henry Fonda

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

I think I'll have a large order of prognosis negative. — Bette Davis

Out into the staff quarters. Over to the entrance to the movie theater. Tohr stopped dead. "If this is another Beaches marathon, I'm going to Bette your ass until you can't sit down."
"Aw, look at you! Trying to be finny."
"Seriously, if you have any compassion in you at all, you'll let me go to bed - "
"I have peanut M&M's up there."
"Not my style."
"Raisinets."
"Feh."
"Sam Adams."
Tohr narrowed his eyes. "Cold?"
"Downright icy."
Tohr crossed his arms over his chest and told himself he was not pouting like a five-year-old. "I want Milk Duds."
"Got 'em. And popcorn."
With a curse, Tohr yanked open the door and ascended into the dimly lit red cave. — J.R. Ward

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

Sometimes when a person be thinking about one thing it don't mean they is mad about another thing. — Bette Greene

I always wanted to be a performer, I didn't know exactly what kind of performer, all I knew was there were certain things that I liked. I liked movies a whole lot, and I loved music. — Bette Midler

If you can accept your differentness and learn to love it and encourage it, then you can be someone wonderful. — Bette Midler

Evil people you never forget them. And that's the aim of any actress-never to be forgotten. — Bette Davis

It was Ernie Haller, who had photographed Bette Davis in Jezebel and Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind, who was solely responsible for the visuals in Mildred Pierce, said Crawford. "Ernie was at the rehearsals. And so was Mr. [Anton] de Grot, who did the sets. I recall seeing Ernie's copy of the script and it was filled with notations and diagrams. I asked him if these were for special lights and he said, 'No, they're for special shadows.' Now, that threw me. I was a little apprehensive. I was used to the look of Metro, where everything, including the war pictures, was filmed in blazing white lights. Even if a person was dying there was no darkness. But when I saw the rushes of Mildred Pierce I realized what Ernie was doing. The shadows and half-lights, the way the sets were lit, together with the unusual angles of the camera, added considerably to the psychology of my character and to the mood and psychology of the film. And that, my dear, is film noir." "Mildred — Shaun Considine

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

When the preacher says it's for better or worse, you're so blinded by the possibility of better you fail to see the reality of worse. — Bette Lee Crosby

It's said that only gypsies have the true gift of looking at a person and seeing their future, so I was happy as a red hen when she said a man named Doyle would be loving me for the whole of my life and then some. — Bette Lee Crosby

We had a moment in the '40s and '50s, where female characters were very strong in film, where these incredible roles were written for women like Joan Crawford, like Bette Davis. But then there was a space of time where - I don't know why - it wasn't like that. It became difficult for women to find certain roles after a certain age. — Monica Bellucci

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

I love nature, in spite of what it did to me. — Bette Midler

A lot of people have no access to beauty. When I was growing up, my mother had only a few pretty things to look at. — Bette Midler

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

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

A person's got to think, otherwise that person's no better than a trained seal balancing a ball on his nose. If only that seal could think, he'd know he was making a thousand children laugh. — Bette Greene

I survived because I was tougher than anybody else. — Bette Davis

The Lord listens in all those places. They're just different slices of the same pie. — Bette Lee Crosby

Beauty is subjective: Bette Davis wasn't beautiful, but she was more than beautiful. — Jacques Audiard

Two people, two hands, and two songs, in this case "Big Shot" and "Bette Davis Eyes." The lyrics of the two songs provided no commentary, honest or ironic, on the proceedings. They were merely there and always underfoot, the insistent gray muck that was pop culture. It stuck to our shoes and we tracked it through our lives. — Colson Whitehead

Remember that we are not gods who can fashion events to our desires. We are mere mortals who must learn not to contend with life but to yield to it. — Bette Bao Lord

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

I could never understand the attraction of Bette Davis. I always preferred Jane Russell. — Richard Griffiths

You will never be happier than you expect. To change your happiness, change your expectation. — Bette Davis

I don't think I have the image that say, Judy Garland has, or Bette Davis. — Julie Andrews

[Beaches] is a pretty picture and I just liked having somebody like Bette [Mudler] who can be flying in the big comedy scenes and have her do more like a realistic part. — Garry Marshall

For days on end, I would hardly speak, and when I did only the vilest sort of gibberish would spout forth. I became morose and fat. Unapproachable, except when eating - and then only by waiters. — Bette Midler

When asked what it takes to succeed in the acting profession, Bette Davis would answer, "the courage to be hated." — Frank Langella

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

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

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

I always felt that Bette Davis was one of the great screen actresses who never really got her due - she won two Oscars, but the last was in 1938, and that was really before all the great work that she did. — Robert Osborne

Wonderful. Visions of Aunt Bette McGyvering an explosive with that exposed nail, some lint from her pocket and spit filled my head just as the door opened quickly and shut just as quickly. — Kristen Ashley

Old age ain't for sissies — Bette Davis

We were just two people headed in the same direction, and walking together was better than walking alone. Love should be more than that. — Bette Lee Crosby

Almost as many inhumanities are committed in the name of love as in the name of religion. — 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

But don't go thinking that I'm critical of you, Anton, because really I'm not. Not a bit! It's just that you're not here. I'm alone and I'm frightened and you're not here. And you're not ever going to be here for me. — Bette Greene

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

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

The world is not a rational place. — Bette Greene

What do you know about sooner or later? Is a moment only a moment when you're in pain? — Bette Greene

If you want a thing done well, get a couple of old broads to do it. — Bette Davis