Bette Midler Quotes

Self-esteem is something you have to earn! The only way to achieve self-esteem is to work hard. People have an obligation to live up to their potential.

Men's brains are smaller than those of women so they can fit into their penises.

The worst part of success is to try to find someone who is happy for you.

I'm working my way toward divinity.

I celebrate everyone's religious holidays. if it's good enough for the righteous, it's good enough for the self-righteous, I always say.

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.

I try not to drink too much because when I'm drunk, I bite.

I'm the last of the truly tacky women. I do trash with flash and sleaze with ease.

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.

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.

Only two groups of people intimidate me absolutely: salespeople and the French.

I'm so glad to be back in New York. Los Angeles can be so cold, so cruel after you've been-what's the word?-oh yes: 'fired.'

If only I'd known my differentness would be an asset, then my earlier life would have been much easier.

All these rumors about [Tom Cruise] being gay. I don't believe it. I don't believe it for one minute. He hasn't been to one of my shows.

My parents have not insisted that we go to college, but she wanted us to learn. Teacher, librarian, secretary, nurse. All my siblings were employed. But I wanted to be the boss, an independent contractor.

[On Denmark:] ... that little country of cottage cheese and courage ...

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.

I had no idea of being a star, all I knew was that I wanted to be a great actress, I wanted to work as an actress. So I thought the way I would be a great actress was to sing and dance first. Lay a foundation - get my foot in the door, and then undoubtedly, of course, I would be offered great roles as soon as I grew up enough to handle them.

Me, I'm just a hack. I'm just a schlep-per. I just do what I can do.

Some say love, is a river, that drowns the tender reed
Some say love, is a razor, that leaves your soul to bleed
Some say love, is a hunger, and endless aching need
I say love, is a flower, and you it's only seed

It's the heart afraid on breaking, that never learns to dance
It's the dream afraid of waking, that never takes a chance
It's the one who won't be taken, who can never seem to give
And the soul afraid of dying, that never learns to live

When the night has been too lonely, and the road has been too long
And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong
Just remember in the winter, far beneath the bitter snow
Lies the seed, that with the sun's love in the spring becomes the rose

Bette Midler - The Rose

I read neither good nor bad about me. I let it not even in my life, so it has no effect on me. I am very sensitive.

What I have in me ... it's not hard, and it's not cold, and it's not fierce ambition, that's not what it is. It's a drive [for success], but it's not a drive ... it's being driven, it's something I have no control over. It's something pushing me, I'm not pushing myself.

Make sure your life is a rare entertainment! It doesn't take anything drastic. You needn't be gorgeous or wealthy or smart, just very enthusiastic!

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

You have to think you're the greatest thing since sliced bread, but you have to know that you're not.

The worst part of success is to try finding someone who is happy for you.

I sold my soul to rock and roll.

I got so far away from what they told you in acting class: Do something different. Producers kept offering me the 'Sister Act' movie, but I said, 'My fans don't want to see me in a wimple.' I literally said, 'My fans don't want to see me in a wimple.'

I want it all - and I would like it delivered.

When you have a steady job you're more inspired to broaden yourself.

Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world.

I hope to keep entertaining in some way until I can't physically entertain any longer. It's what I was born to do, and I love this profession.

I'd never done a straight play before, never, and it was very hard work - really, really hard work. It was dense, really wordy, and I was determined to learn every word of it - not just skip over bits and pieces.

I have my standards. They're low, but I have them.

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.

Education is my next big thing. When music and art were taken out of the schools, I went berserk!

Total contentment is only for cows.

It's the Point of Your View that Decides What You See - / One Man's Flop Is Another Man's Hit. / From Manners to Movies, the Picture Keeps Changing / Depending Upon Where You Sit.

I think the essence of humor has not changed. It's all about surprise, facilitating follows. But the context of humor has changed. Previously, the jokes were more related to current issues, political. Today people make about each other either funny or about people like Kim Kardashian. It's brutal. Everything is so much vielschmutziger.

It's the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance. It is the dream afraid of waking that never takes the chance. It is the one who won't be taken who cannot seem to give. And the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live.

I made a pact with myself a long time ago: Never watch anything stupider than you. It's helped me a lot.

I sometimes think I should go back to school to learn French and music, but who would have me?

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.

The [film] business is run by men, and they're basically interested in their own species, and they're not so interested in women belonging to the human race.

When I moved to New York City in 1965, I wanted to be in theater. I was following my Ethel Barrymore dream. But I was too young to be Ethel.

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

Here I am, one of the most colorful women of my time - if not of my block - being made to sound positively legumelike in printed interviews.

Before one actually visits them, everyone tends to think of their favorite countries as one grand Disneyland filled with national monuments and historical treasures conveniently laid out for easy viewing, when what they really are filled with, of course, is people going to work, laundromats and places to buy rat poison.

I wish America would spend even half as much time complaining about plastics in our oceans as we do about actresses' plastic surgery.

Cherish forever what makes you unique, cuz you're really a yawn if it goes

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

After thirty, a body has a mind of its own.

My idea of superwoman is someone who scrubs her own floors.

The outside world doesn't have a lot to offer. You have to make your own heaven in your own home.

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.

A lot of people say that my life is wasted on me because I could be a bigger asshole than I am, but I've chosen not to be.

If I could be granted a wish, I'd shine in your eye like a jewel.

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.

I never know how much of what I say is true.

Group conformity scares the pants off me because it's so often a prelude to cruelty towards anyone who doesn't want to - or can't - join the Big Parade.

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.

There's a kind of emotional exploration you plumb with a friend that you don't really do with your family.

People are not the best because they work hard. They work hard because they are the best.

My parents taught me: Do not rely on a man. Not rely on it that you get married and it pays for you. That's what I figured. I have always paid my own bills.

Rap is poetry set to music. But to me it's like a jackhammer.

GOD is watching us, from a Distance ...

If somebody makes me laugh, I'm his slave for life.

I bear no grudges. I have a mind that retains nothing.

I would much rather watch myself than listen to myself. The moving is second nature, but the listening ... that's the art.