Top 100 Bette Quotes
#1. Success is built on disappointment, and disappointment is inherent in all success.
Bette Davis
#2. If they [at the audition] don't like the way you sound they won't buy you anyway, ripped dress or no ripped dress, ass hanging out or no ass hanging out.
Bette Midler
#3. It's no such thing! she said. It's friendship! And if you're a man who can't tell friendship from charity, then you're to be pitied!
Bette Lee Crosby
#4. I love beautiful black-and-white movies - anything Bette Davis, especially 'Now', 'Voyager', 'Casablanca', 'Mildred Pierce'; anything by Orson Welles, Truffaut, or Godard; and 'Paper Moon' by Peter Bogdanovich.
Suzan-Lori Parks
#5. The young see what they wish to see. The old see what they do not wish.
Bette Lord
#6. Bette Davis had a phrase that called it "cigarette smoking acting" .
Joe Eszterhas
#7. The only reason anyone goes to Broadway is because they can't get work in the movies.
Bette Davis
#8. 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
#9. An affair now and then is good for a marriage. It adds spice, stops it from getting boring ... I ought to know.
Bette Davis
#10. 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
#11. Each day is a gift. Treasure it and remember it for what it is. There may come a time when that memory is all you have.
Bette Lee Crosby
#12. 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
#13. Actually, I think business women are better women at home, if you want to know the truth because you do understand what goes into a day's work out in the world, a very nerve-racking affair.
Bette Davis
#14. If somebody makes me laugh, I'm his slave for life.
Bette Midler
#15. Sometimes when a person be thinking about one thing it don't mean they is mad about another thing.
Bette Greene
#16. Life is the past, the present and the perhaps.
Bette Davis
#17. I think one of my favourite films is 'Dark Victory' with Bette Davis. Why? She was so wonderful in that film. And maybe I just want a good cry once in a while without having to go through a divorce.
Debbie Reynolds
#18. As an actor, you're supposed to take jobs that will challenge you or force fans to see you in a different light. By the '90s, I wasn't really an actor anymore. I was someone who went on the road with these gigantic concerts.
Bette Midler
#19. 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
#20. 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
#21. Beauty is subjective: Bette Davis wasn't beautiful, but she was more than beautiful.
Jacques Audiard
#22. I am a woman meant for a man, but I never found a man who could compete.
Bette Davis
#23. If you want a thing done well, get a couple of old broads to do it.
Bette Davis
#24. Tracy Ullman, I grew up watching her shows and standup and improv and specials. Bette Midler and Whoopi Goldberg. They inspire me to do it all. I always wanted to do it all; I never wanted to be put in a box.
Bresha Webb
#25. A man's pride will cause him to do things you never dreamed possible. He got fired up about being right and blocked out everything else.
Bette Lee Crosby
#26. I used to be Snow White but then I drifted.
Bette Davies
#27. When you have a steady job you're more inspired to broaden yourself.
Bette Midler
#28. 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
#29. I try not to drink too much because when I'm drunk, I bite.
Bette Midler
#30. I think one of my biggest influences is Bette Davis. I've seen almost every one of her films, and she's been very inspiring to me.
Elisabeth Moss
#31. Bookworms aren't people who love to read. They are people who treat books as treasures. Anonymous
Bette A. Stevens
#32. Hollywood always wanted me to be pretty, but I fought for realism.
Bette Davis
#33. There comes a time in every woman's life when the only thing that helps is a glass of champagne.
Bette Davis
#35. But you, Pearl, never liked anything once it was yours.
Bette Greene
#36. I'd watch old movies with Judy Garland, Shirley Temple and Bette Davis and long to be part of that glamorous world. A lot of that glamour is gone now. In my own small way, I hope I'm bringing some of it back. But it would be great if I could inspire women to dress up.
Imelda May
#37. 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
#38. Some young Hollywood starlets remind me of my grandmother's old farmhouse
all painted up nice on the front side, a big swing on the backside, and nothing whatsoever in the attic.
Bette Davis
#39. 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
#40. I always loved the bad girls in the movies. I loved Bette Davis; I loved Katherine Hepburn. I loved Ava Gardner.
Imelda May
#41. Nothing fruitful ever comes when plants are forced to flower in the wrong season.
Bette Lord
#42. The worst part of success is to try to find someone who is happy for you.
Bette Midler
#43. 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
#44. The Bette Davis Club," she said. "You've joined, you're a member. It's my metaphor for any female - and there've been zillions - who gets a crush on a gay fellow, dates a gay fellow, or heaven help us, marries a gay fellow.
Jane Lotter
#45. 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.
Bette Midler
#46. When asked what it takes to succeed in the acting profession, Bette Davis would answer, "the courage to be hated."
Frank Langella
#47. Joan Crawford is a movie star. I am an actress.
Bette Davis
#48. The act of sex, gratifying as it may be, is God's joke on humanity. It is man's last desperate stand at superintendency.
Bette Davis
#49. The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he's dead.
Bette Davis
#50. Mother of three; divorcee; American. Twenty years experience as an actress in motion pictures. Mobile still and more affable than rumour would have it. Wants steady employment in Hollywood. (Has had Broadway). References upon request.
Bette Davis
#51. Look inside yourself and you'll find a world of things (a world of your own experiences)worth writing about.
Bette Greene
#52. I just loved Bette Davis and the fact that I had a chance to work with her [on the 1979 TV movie Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter] was momentous.
Gena Rowlands
#53. I haven't left my house in days. I watch the news channels incessantly. All the news stories are about the election; all the commercials are Viagra and Cialis.
Election, erection, election, erection!
Either way we're screwed!
Bette Midler
#54. If everybody likes you, you are not a very interesting person.
Bette Davis
#55. [On gay men:] Let me say, a more artistic, appreciative group of people for the arts does not exist ... They are more knowledgeable, more loving of the arts. They make the average male look stupid.
Bette Davis
#57. I firmly believe that with the right footwear one can rule the world.
Bette Midler
#58. That's me: an old kazoo with some sparklers.
Bette Davis
#59. Cherish forever what makes you unique, cuz you're really a yawn if it goes
Bette Midler
#60. It has been my experience that one cannot, in any shape or form, depend on human relations for lasting reward. It is only work that truly satisfies.
Bette Davis
#61. I think men have got to change an awful lot. They still prefer the little woman.
Bette Davis
#62. To ask for anything of consequence from friends who cannot refuse is uncivilized.
Bette Lord
#63. Aunt Bette." I started squirming toward her voice. "Are you okay?" "No, I'm not okay. We've been kidnapped and Marsh is drinking martinis and probably flirting with the waitress!" she snapped, and it sounded like she too was moving but not in my direction.
Kristen Ashley
#64. I keep saying that, if Samuel L. Jackson and Bette Davis could have a baby, it would be Taraji P. Henson. To me, she's one of the greatest character actors of our generation, let alone leading ladies. She's just phenomenal in everything she does.
Jussie Smollett
#66. All I really want to do is just keep acting, and some of it will stink, and some of it will be really good, and maybe when I'm 85 and presenting an Oscar like Bette Davis did, I can look back and say, 'It was okay, I did all right.'
Whoopi Goldberg
#67. It's weird, because American films in the 1930s and '40s, particularly melodramas, were made for woman, from Bette Davis to Joan Crawford to Barbara Stanwyck to Katherine Hepburn, and for some reason we've taken a step backward in this sense.
James Gray
#68. I want it all - and I would like it delivered.
Bette Midler
#69. I grew up on Bette Davis movies, and Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe.
Charlize Theron
#70. I was brought up on rock-'n'-roll. It was sort of funny because I couldn't get interested in anything else - I tried and tried but I couldn't get into science ... or mathematics, I just cut myself off from anything else there was to get interested in.
Bette Midler
#71. I loved all those classic figures from the '30s and '40s ... Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Humphrey Bogart, Rita Hayworth. They had such glamour and style. I loved the movies of those times too - so much attention paid to details, lights, clothing, the way the studios would develop talent.
Grace Jones
#72. You know what I'm going to have on my gravestone? 'She did it the hard way.'
Bette Davis
#73. I don't take the movies seriously, and anyone who does is in for a headache.
Bette Davis
#74. I was the kid that grew up watching Bette Davis films.
Rebecca Hall
#75. 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
#77. Bette Davis taught Hollywood to follow an actress instead of the actress following the camera, and she's probably the best movie actress there's ever been.
Elaine Stritch
#78. I had never done a Director's Cut narration on Beaches so I did in time for the release of the DVD. It was a great visit and I do a whole-behind-the-scenes thing and I tell stories about Bette [Mudler] and Barbara Hershey and everybody and that was fun. It made me cry again.
Garry Marshall
#79. There was more good acting at Hollywood parties than ever appeared on the screen.
Bette Davis
#80. There's a kind of emotional exploration you plumb with a friend that you don't really do with your family.
Bette Midler
#81. The [film] industry is an ecosystem that's sick.
Bette Midler
#82. 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
#83. I wish America would spend even half as much time complaining about plastics in our oceans as we do about actresses' plastic surgery.
Bette Midler
#84. 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
#85. Pleasure of love lasts but a moment, Pain of love lasts a lifetime.
Bette Davis
#86. The inventor of the modern foundation garment that we women wear today was a German scientist and opera lover by the name of Otto Titsling.
Bette Midler
#87. Music is probably the only place I get energy from. Music and maybe watching a really tremendous performer, watching a terrific performer like Jagger or watching a great movie.
Bette Midler
#88. I tried to charm the pants off Bob Dylan, but everyone will be disappointed to learn that I was unsuccessful. I got close - a couple of fast feels in the front seat of a Cadillac.
Bette Midler
#89. Melbourne is the kind of town that really makes you consider the question 'Is there life after death?
Bette Midler
#90. I've been close to Bette Davis for thirty-eight years - and I have the cigarette burns to prove it.
Henry Fonda
#91. Thank God for the gays. I don't know what would have happened but I know what did happen. Good for them and good for me.
Bette Midler
#92. One thing you can say about him is that he's appreciative. He's just happy having someone to sit with.
Bette Greene
#93. I didn't forget your breakfast. I didn't bring your breakfast. Because you didn't eat your din-din.
Bette Davis
#94. I never know how much of what I say is true.
Bette Midler
#95. I wouldnt piss on Joan Crawford if she were on fire
Bette Davis
#96. Enough about me. What do you think about me?
Bette Midler
#97. I've always said we got married because there was nothing on TV.
Bette Midler
#98. I learned to accept the audience's happiness for me, which is one of the hardest things for me to learn.
Bette Midler
#99. Gay Liberation? I ain't against it, it's just that there's nothing in it for me.
Bette Davis
#100. I don't think I had the aspiration to be a star growing up. I loved Madonna and Bette Midler, and I had my karaoke machine and would sing their songs.
Mandy Moore
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