Elaine Stritch Quotes

I get sick of saying how hard everything is. It's hard to get up in the morning. Everything's hard. Everything takes effort.

There's something exciting about being afraid.

The people in New York - their humor is on a level that goes, uh, very deep, you know?

I'd like to discover life. Quite frankly I don't know how to be happy. I have not a clue. I only serve - and I don't say that with any grandeur. I just serve others through entertaining. That's when I am happy. I'm not just delighted with myself when I'm entertaining, but I'm happier than when I'm not.

I want to settle down this last time. I say last, because I don't think I'm in any condition to live a long time from now. The bell's gonna ring pretty soon.

There's nothing attractive about doing a documentary. Nothing. It's hard, hard work, and I find having all the attention of the day on me a very unattractive proposition.

Fear is the base of what everybody does wrong in their lives.

I love audiences. My God, the best friends in the world!

When I'm playing comedy, it is such a crap shoot of what will work and what won't.

I don't wear a wig. I'd feel terrible onstage with a wig. I hate to be so 'Actors Studio'-ish, but I like to feel it's me out there.

It's very disconcerting to start out and to say, "I'm going to tell the truth," and then to realize it's that much trouble.

Woody Allen is a better actor than anybody from the Actors Studio, and he can be anybody he says he is.

I have not had any of that surgical stuff. I am too curious to find out exactly how I progress every day of my life naturally. That is what fascinates me.

I think it's the wrong way around to say, 'When you get older move to the country.' I think when you get older you move to New York.

For me, going to London is like coming home. In fact, I've often entertained the idea of ending my days there.

I care about money, very much. I want it. I don't ever want to be without it. My mother once said about me, 'Elaine has to have money.'

There will always be ladies who lunch. Always. And apparently they live a long time.

I wouldn't have a nose job. I like my nose fine.

I never found anyone who could look after me as well as I could look after myself.

If I see a great performance on television, onstage, in the movies, I go to work the next day with a renewed energy and less fear. These great artists take me out of my life and make me want to go there.

Well if I had my choice I would not - I wouldn't mind working with Alec Baldwin, but the mother role - I'm kidding. It's terrific. I'll tell you what happened with Alec Baldwin and myself. This is a couple acting together just this side of heaven. He's one of the best actors I've ever worked with in whole life. And I - I'm not overdoing it. I just think he's about the best around today. So I got lucky.

These performers that go on about their technique and craft - oh, puleeze! How boring! I don't know what 'technique' means. But I do know what experience is.

Drama drama drama. The public wants it, so let them get the whole ugly mess. Why not?

Talent is very dangerous. It alienates people.

New Yorkers stop me on the street all the time to say, 'You're terrific! You're the nuts!'

Onstage, nothing is as important as truth, nothing. As soon as you lie, they know it.

I don't have to go to a doctor and have my face changed. It terrifies me that women do that.

People will always be around to tell you you're no good or you're wrong or unwise to keep doing what you want to do. They're wrong. They're always wrong. Keep going.

I like being talked about. I think some people really don't ... because they're secure enough and they don't need that.

I tell the truth, and it has gotten me into a lot of trouble. My dad used to say to me, 'If you tell the truth all day long, you will end up in jail.'

When I want to do something badly enough, I do it, but there is a practical side of me that thinks I should be paid fairly.

I don't know what should have happened in my life, but I do know that I'm dancing as fast as I can.

I love holidays in New York. I love 'em. I want to celebrate something all the time, and New York has holidays for every day of the week, practically. I like holidays in New York City.

You have to be very, very good looking to get ahead in motion pictures.

I think the most interesting New Yorkers are the people who were not born here.

I was so happy I didn't have to work that night. That was the truth, because show business is about the hardest profession in the world.

I love Birmingham, Michigan. It's lovely - you know, it's very similar to the Hamptons.

As a diabetic, I'm a walking picnic. I have to eat measured amounts of food at certain times.

When you're dealing with your life, my God, you gotta tell the truth.

All of the writing on '30 Rock' is a joy to go into. It's pretty hot stuff.

I've changed a lot, too! I'm different, too. I have far more in some ways to offer and far less in other ways to offer. That's life. And, you know, life goes on!

Diabetes is a lousy, lousy disease.

There's certainly nothing lasting and definite about the theater.

You can't be funny unless you're tragic, and you can't be tragic unless you're funny.

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.

I do believe in the infallibility of the Pope, because I think we have to believe in something.

If somebody doesn't have any talent, get off the stage! you're wasting my time.

I certainly was not the romantic lead. I couldn't be that, because I was not that good looking. And that is something about Hollywood that I do not like at all. Why can't a woman who is just normally good looking fall in love? I mean, everybody in the movies is so good looking.

Tony Bennett said to me, "Wow, your talent is amazing." Maybe he's a bore, maybe he's a jerk, but when he said that to me, I didn't need anything more than that.

I felt that I committed myself too much. I promised too much. But that way it's exciting.

I'm funny when I want to be. And I'm even funny when I don't want to be.

Why haven't I made more movies? Nobody asked me.

I don't know what to do with Warren Beatty. All I know is that he wasn't attracted to me. That's all right.

Two drinks a day. Two drinks a day. TWO DRINKS A DAY! It doesn't work! Not when you want eleven, and not when you start shopping for wine glasses in the vase department at Bloomingdales.

My idea of serenity - that wonderful word that everybody's trying to get into their life - is call-waiting.

I'm a good acting partner for me ... when I don't have anyone else, I do really well!

I am not influenced by other human beings. But I am inspired.

What I want to understand is what I am talking about on the stage. What I don't want to understand is what the government is talking about when the government tells me about taxes.

I can't explain chemistry. I really can't. I haven't got a clue what it's all about. It just happens. It's like falling in love. You can't explain why you fall in love or explain why it's this particular person.

Talent is seductive.

I have no intention of retiring. Even my blood sugar is better when I'm working.

There's something that really frightens me - and that's fear.