Bette Davis Quotes

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

Getting old ain't for sissies.

The only reason anyone goes to Broadway is because they can't get work in the movies.

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

I would take a bad script and a good director any day against a good script and a bad director.

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!

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

Old age ain't no place for sissies.

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

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.

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.

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

I gave her a look that would exterminate lice.

Daddy in his infinite knowledge always saw the roots and not the flowers. He took all the watches of the world apart and never knew what time it was.

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.

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.

Temperament is something that is an integral part of the artist. Not temper, temperament. There is a vast difference.

I don't think of myself as a character actress - that's become a phrase which means you've had it.

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.

To look back is to relax one's vigil.

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.

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.

Today everyone is a star - they're all billed as 'starring' or 'also starring'. In my day, we earned that recognition.

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

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

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

Technicolor makes me look like death warmed over.

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.

I'm the nicest goddamn dame that ever lived.

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

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

The male ego with few exceptions is elephantine to start with.

If men found out how to give birth to children they'll never propose again.

I've been lucky. I'll be lucky again.

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

My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose.

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

I was the Marlon Brando of my generation.

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

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.

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.

I will never be below the title.

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

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.

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.

I believe one should be a woman at home.

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.

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

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

If Hollywood didn't work out, I was prepared to be the best secretary in the world.

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

She's the original good time who was had by all.

I am doomed to an eternity of compulsive work. No set goal achieved satisfies. Success only breeds a new goal. The golden apple devoured has seeds. It is endless.

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

One begins to realize that one is getting old when the birthday candles weigh more than the cake.

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

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.

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.

Funny business, a woman's career. The things you drop on your way up the ladder
so you can move faster
you forget you'll need them when you go back to being a woman. That's one career all females have in common whether we like it or not. Being a woman. Sooner or later, we've got to work at it, no matter what other careers we've had or wanted. And in the last analysis nothing is any good unless you can look up just before dinner
or turn around in bed
and there he is. Without that you're not a woman. You're someone with a French provincial office
or a book full of clippings. But you're not a woman. Slow curtain. The end. (from "All About Eve")

Strong women only marry weak men.

If everybody likes you, you're pretty dull.

I work to stay alive.

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

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

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.

I don't take the movies seriously, and anyone who does is in for a headache.

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

Your luck is how you treat people.

The secret of marriage is: separate bedrooms and separate bathrooms.

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

The real female should be partly male and the real male should be partly female anyway.

I am a woman meant for a man, but I never found a man who could compete.

Life is the past, the present and the perhaps.

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.

I'de luv to kiss ya but I just washed my hair.

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

I was the female Marlon Brando of my generation.

Getting old is not for sissies.

Men become much more attractive when they start looking older. But it doesn't do much for women, though we do have an advantage: make-up.

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.

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

Sex is God's joke on human beings.

I've lost my faith in science.

There's only one way to work
like hell.

Everybody has a heart. Except some people.

Joan Crawford is a movie star. I am an actress.

There comes a time in every woman's life when the only thing that helps is a glass of champagne.

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

Gay Liberation? I ain't against it, it's just that there's nothing in it for me.

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

I survived because I was tougher than anybody else.

Pray to God and say the lines.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

I've always liked men better than women.

I think I showed my restraint by not pulling her hair out by the roots.