Ethel Merman Quotes

I preferred delivering my performance in person. I liked to be in control. You couldn't be in films.

At one time I smoked, but in 1959 I couldn't think of anything else to give up for Lent so I stopped - and I haven't had a cigarette since.

Be yourself
it's the one thing you can do better than anyone else.

I've made a wonderful living playing that theatrical character - the professional brassy dame.

You'll never prove you're too good for a job by not doing your best.

I work as often as I want and yet I'm free as a bird.

Christmas carols always brought tears to my eyes. I also cry at weddings. I should have cried at a couple of my own.

Broadway has been very good to me. But then, I've been very good to broadway.

I mentioned that I was thinking of getting out of the business after Call Me Madam. I thought maybe I should become a homebody.

Legend has it that when God created me, he gave me a big distinctive voice, a lot of boldness and no heart.

In my case, things have pretty much been handed to me.

I have plenty of invitations to go places, lots to do. If I'm not working, I go to have my hair taken care of and work at needlepoint.

I can never remember being afraid of an audience. If the audience could do better, they'd be up here on stage and I'd be out there watching them.

Always give them the old fire, even when you feel like a squashed cake of ice.

I wouldn't trust any man as far as you can throw a piano.

[Cole Porter] sang like a hinge.

Mom claimed that I could carry a tune at 2 or 3 years of age. Maybe she was a little prejudiced.

Who's happy these days?

Eisenhower was my war hero and the President I admire and respect most.

Music, in the past few years ... anything singable or understandable is square.

I'll admit - I was honored to be on the cover of Time.

I have been ambitious to be a somebody from the time I was 5 years old.

My beloved Mom and Pop always rated tops with each other, and that's the way it will always be.

I was lucky enough to have the songs in my first show written by George and Ira Gershwin. Then Cole Porter wrote five shows for me.

I was born in my parents' bedroom on January 16. The World Almanac says it was 1909. I say it was 1912. But what difference does it make as long as I feel 33?

I wasn't straining at the bit to become a movie star any more than I had plotted to get out of vaudeville and into Broadway musicals.

Everything's coming up roses - for me.

Now what kind of an attitude is that, 'These things happen?' They only happen because this whole country is just full of people who, when these things happen, they just say, 'These things happen,' and that's why they happen! We gotta have control of what happens to us.

When you are in deep conflict about something, sometimes the most trivial thing can tip the scales.

Once I had all the attention, all I had to do was deliver.

I Got Rhythm really put me on the map.

Of my four marriages, the one to Bob Levitt is the only one I don't regret.

My career at Warner Brothers consisted of one musical short subject. I was running around in a bear skin. Very chic.

You gotta have a gimmick.

Any audience that gets a laugh out of me gets it while I'm facing them.