Betty White Quotes

I'm a teenager trapped in an old body.

I'm not into animal rights. I'm only into animal welfare and health. I've been with the Morris Animal Foundation since the '70s. We're a health organization. We fund campaign health studies for dogs, cats, lizards and wildlife. I've worked with the L.A. Zoo for about the same length of time. I get my animal fixes!

Gravity has taken over me from time to time. But otherwise than that, I'm blessed with good health. That's the bottom line.

I don't know where I learned elephants like their tongues slapped. Whatever turns you on.

When I realized I could use Facebook as a way to communicate directly with my fans, I thought it would be a great idea.

If you have one good series, you know, it's a blessing. Two good series is unusual. Three is a phenomenon, but right now, I'm working with these wonderful women on 'Hot in Cleveland,' and Valerie Bertinelli, and Wendy Malick and Jane Leeves are like, it's like the buddy-ship we had on 'Golden Girls' and 'Mary Tyler Moore.'

Doing drama is, in a sense, easier. In doing comedy, if you don't get that laugh, there's something wrong.

If the guy's a cutie, you've gotta tap that booty.

Of course, nobody's tearing my door down. If you're successful you're going to intimidate and scare off the people you'd like to spend time with. They're not going to approach you. And the ones who do are often there because you are a celebrity.

Literally it's the precise moment when dog doo turns white, but in general it refers to the type of person you don't want to share your hoogencogles with.

I'm blessed with good health for which I'm deeply grateful, so for that reason, I feel so good. Everybody else is far more excited about the 90 than I am.

I've worked with Morris Animal Foundation for more than 40 years now, and I'm so proud of all they've done to advance veterinary medicine for animals worldwide.

It's [old age] not a surprise, we knew it was coming – make the most of it. So you may not be as fast on your feet, and the image in your mirror may be a little disappointing, but if you are still functioning and not in pain, gratitude should be the name of the game.

If you're walking with your lady on the sidewalk, I still like to see a man walking street-side, to protect the lady from traffic. I grew up with that, and I hate to see something like that get lost. I still like to see that a man opens the door. I like those touches of chivalry that are fast disappearing.

I may be a senior, but so what? I'm still hot.

I don't care who anybody sleeps with,

I know unless I'm true to myself I couldn't be happy. Too much emphasis is placed today on externals and too little on character.

You know what the problem that animal activists sometimes have? They only concentrate on the heartbreaking things to the point where the general public thinks, 'Oh, here comes those animal folks again and I'm going to hear all the things I don't want to hear.'

I always tape my Christmas show in advance. That way I can spend the season of joy and goodwill with my only sister in Florida. She's kinda a creep but she's got a pool.

I'm a big cockeyed optimist. I try to accentuate the positive as opposed to the negative.

It's your outlook on life that counts. If you take yourself lightly and don't take yourself too seriously, pretty soon you can find the humor in our everyday lives. And sometimes it can be a lifesaver.

Well, I mean, if a joke or humor is bawdy, it's got to be funny enough to warrant it. You can't just have it bawdy or dirty just for the sake of being that - it's got to be funny.

My mother always used to say, The older you get, the better you get. Unless you're a banana.

One thing they don't tell you about growing old - you don't feel old, you just feel like yourself. And it's true. I don't feel eighty-nine years old. I simply am eighty-nine years old.

I can't get over that at this age I don't feel this age. I'm not trying to be any younger. I'm not lying about my age. If I were lying about my age, I would say I was 89. I'm just at one of those good times in one's life. I'm at one of the high spots. I'm healthy enough to enjoy it. I'm surrounded by friends I adore. Isn't that kind of the best way to sign off?

Snow always inspires such awe in me. Just consider one tiny snowflake alone, so delicate, so fragile, so ethereal. And yet, let a billion of them come together through the majestic force of nature, they can screw up a whole city.

I really don't care with whom you sleep. I just care what kind of a decent human being you are.

Why retire from something if you're loving it so much and enjoying it so much, and you're blessed with another group of people to work with like the gang on 'Hot in Cleveland?' Why would I think of retiring? What would I do with myself?

I just want to bring as much natural as I can. I'm not saying that people who take acting lessons are false. They're much better than I am, but it doesn't work for me.

Once someone has had the good fortune to share a true love affair with a Golden Retriever, one's life and one's outlook is never quite the same.

The audience today has heard every joke. They know every plot. They know where you're going before you even start. That's a tough audience to surprise, and a tough audience to write for. It's much more competitive now, because the audience is so much more - I want to say 'sophisticated.'

People forget the good that zoos do. If it weren't for zoos, we would have so many species that would be extinct today.

The writers are the stars of every really successful sitcom.

I'm not what you might call sexy, but I'm romantic. Let's put it that way.

I happen to be blessed with loving what I do for a living. I love acting and I'm so fortunate to be able to work in this business. And I get these marvelous letters about how encouraging it is to see someone making the most of their time and still enjoying it.

I was an only child and I had a mother and father who were just - there wasn't a straight man in the house, and I mean that in a very nice way. They were fun, and we would laugh a lot.

When you start explaining why something's funny or finding a formula for it I think it loses some of its funniness.

I'm so compulsive about stuff, I know if I had ever gotten pregnant, of course, that would have been my whole focus. But I didn't choose to have children because I'm focused on my career. And I just don't think, as compulsive as I am, that I could manage both.

I didn't know I was a gay icon. I get a lot of mail - but I don't get many bad letters - but I got a woman the other day that was so upset with me because they said, 'How do you feel about the gay marriage thing?' and my answer to that is, 'I really don't care with whom you sleep, I just care what kind of a decent human being you are.' I figure all the rest of it is your business and not mine. And not hers, incidentally.

I think we're losing our sense of humor instead of being able to relax and laugh at ourselves. I don't care whether it's ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, or whose ox is being gored.

I don't get political.

I have my golden retriever now, Pontiac. He's a career-change guide dog from Guide Dogs for the Blind.

Having a live audience makes a world of difference to the acting. It keeps your timing sharp. When something doesn't work, the actor can sense the reaction from the audience and quickly move on.

People who don't like cats haven't been around them. There's the old joke: dogs have masters, cats have staff.

I'm in the middle of my sixth book, which is about animals at the Los Angeles Zoo.

I don't seem to require a lot of sleep. I just - if I get four, five good hours, I'm fine. But sleeping is sort of dull. There's a lot of other good stuff that you can do without just lying down and closing your eyes.

You can always tell about somebody by the way they put their hands on an animal.

I don't care who anybody sleeps with. If a couple has been together all that time - and there are gay relationships that are more solid than some heterosexual ones - I think it's fine if they want to get married. I don't know how people can get so anti-something.

Animals are near and dear to my heart, and I've devoted my life to trying to improve their lives.

Oh, I don't need sleep. I just went to my hotel room and had a cold hot dog and a vodka on the rocks.

I think the best kind of comedy is the least self conscious. I think if you just sort of let the comedy happen without the elbow nudge, did you get it, did you get it. I love straight face comedy or subtle - relatively subtle comedy.

Retirement is not in my vocabulary.

Take personal responsibility. A lot of people go, 'Well, I'll get a dog because I have a kid and a kid needs a dog.' And it doesn't work out for that dog and the dog is on the street.

Being blessed with good health gives you the strength and loving what you do and - is a privilege that keeps you going. So I'm just happy as a lark.

Retirement is not a dirty word, I am just enjoying what I am doing. If they want me to retire, then stop asking me. Ask and I will say yes unless it is something I really don't like.

I'm having the time of my life and the fact that I'm still working - how lucky can you get? I'm 90 years old and still able to work as much as I do. That's a privilege.

We didn't have Facebook in my day, we had a phone book but you wouldn't waste an afternoon on it

I've always had a bawdy sense of humor. My father was a traveling salesman and he would bring jokes home. He would say, "Honey, you can take this one to school, but you can't take that one to school."

I am the luckiest old broad on two feet if the truth were known. It's - but it all goes back to 'Mary Tyler Moore,' 'Golden Girls,' all those - actors love to take the credit. We couldn't do it without the writers.

Humor is like a rhythm; it's like music. And you throw a couple of extra syllables in, you wreck the beat and you kill the laugh. So I try to follow the writers very carefully because I know how carefully they worked to do it that way.

We actors can't take the credit. We love to try to claim the credit.

Hot dogs and Red Vines and potato chips and French fries are my favorite foods.

'Mary Tyler Moore' was - it was my first big hit.

It's been phenomenal, but everybody keeps congratulating me on my resurgence and my big comeback. I haven't been away, guys. I've been working steadily for the last 63 years.

As the years went on, the audience has become very jaded. They've heard every joke, they've seen every story line, they know where you're going before you even start to get there. And that's a hard audience to keep interested.

I'm in the acting business. That's the ego business.

My mother and dad were big animal lovers, too. I just don't know how I would have lived without animals around me. I'm fascinated by them - both domestic pets and the wild community. They just are the most interesting things in the world to me, and it's made such a difference in my lifetime.

Throughout my career, I've always portrayed characters that were humorous, but also weren't afraid to speak their minds, especially when it came to racy or controversial topics. I think this struck a chord with the LGBT community. We both also share a very strong love for animals. When you combine the two, it's a very strong match.

Long ago, I did a five-and-a-half-hour-a-day, six-day-a-week talk show for four years, early on, in Los Angeles - local show. And when you are on that many hours with no script, you know, you get very comfortable, maybe overly comfortable with that small audience.

The film industry gives you the opportunity to meet interesting people.

I've worked with the Los Angeles Zoo for 45 years, and we have this magnificent photographer, Tad Motoyama. He takes these wonderful, wonderful animal pictures. All through the years he's given me copies of these pictures. Well, I have all these gorgeous ones, so I said, 'Tad, I want to do a book with your picture on one side.'

I'm wearing a put-together from a little shop that I favor called the back of my closet.

Wilderness is harder and harder to find these days on this beautiful planet, and we're abusing our planet to the point of almost no return.

Animals don't lie. Animals don't criticize. If animals have moody days, they handle them better than humans do.

I go out to the kitchen to feed the dog, but that's about as much cooking as I do.

You don't luck into integrity. You work at it.

If everyone took personal responsibility for their animals, we wouldn't have a lot of the animal problems that we do. I'm a big spay-and-neuter supporter. Don't have babies if you're not going to take care of those babies. We don't need more. We just need to take care of the ones we have. Take responsibility and breathe kindness.

I think a handwritten letter - a lot of guys don't realize what that means.It's those little romantic touches that tell a lady, "I like a lot of people, but you have a special place in my heart."

If one has no sense of humor, one is in trouble.

When I'm around animals, I don't pay attention to people.

My blessing is I'm blessed with good health. If I weren't feeling good or if I didn't have the energy, then it's not that much fun. But this way, you can get away with murder because you're going to be 90 in January.

I think it's your mental attitude. So many of us start dreading age in high school and that's a waste of a lovely life. 'Oh ... I'm 30, oh, I'm 40, oh, 50.' Make the most of it.

I think a lot of people like hidden-camera shows where they think they're spying on somebody who doesn't know they're looking at them. And nobody takes it seriously - you either enjoy it and get a laugh out of the reactions or not.

I just make it my business to get along with people so I can have fun. It's that simple.

I love words. Sudoku I don't get into, I'm not into numbers that much, and there are people who are hooked on that. But crossword puzzles, I just can't - if I get a puppy and I paper train him and I put the - if all of a sudden I'd open the paper and there's a crossword puzzle - 'No, no, you can't go on that, honey. I'll take it.'

You gotta use everything you possibly can!

People have told me 'Betty, Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with old friends ... '
.. At my age, if I wanted to keep in touch with old friends, I'd need a Ouija board

I didn't know what Facebook was, and now that I do know what it is, I have to say, it sounds like a huge waste of time.

I like double entendre because then the people who get it enjoy it, and the people who don't get it don't know about it.

Sex is pretty funny, let's face it. And the more seriously we take ourselves, the funnier sex gets, I think.

The thing that I love about television there are no more than two or three people watching you at a time. If there are more than two or three people in a room they're talking to each other, they're not listening to you.

I still like to see that a man opens the door. I like those touches of chivalry that are fast disappearing. If I sound old-fashioned, it's because I'm as old as I am! But it's just polite.

All creatures must learn to coexist. That's why the brown bear and the field mouse can share their lives in harmony. Of course, they can't mate or the mice would explode.

Now that I'm 91, as opposed to being 90, I'm much wiser. I'm much more aware and I'm much sexier.

I stayed in show business to pay for my animal business.

Vodka is kind of a hobby.

Avoid tweeting any photos of your private parts.