Gilda Radner Quotes

I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Suddenly I had to spend all my time getting well. ~ Gilda Radner

Suddenly I began to wonder how to please so many people. do I take the magnesium citrate? What about the coffee enema? Do I do both? Do I do the abdominal message or the colonic? Do I tell the doctors about each other? East meets West in Gilda's body: Western medicine down my throat, Eastern medicine up my butt. ~ Gilda Radner

I loved pretending to be a middle-aged Jewish woman. I just wanted to do what I saw Gilda Radner and Carol Burnett doing. But I'm not a particularly good impressionist. It was never my strong suit. ~ Jenny Slate

I'm not really an impersonator. ~ Gilda Radner

[Motherhood is] the biggest gamble in the world. It is the glorious life force. It's huge and scary-it's an act of infinite optimism. ~ Gilda Radner

I think 'Saturday Night Live', starting in the 1970s, really gave women an outlet to be funny. A lot of those women went on to have film careers, from Kristen Wiig now to Tina Fey and Gilda Radner. ~ Emma Stone

The more I protested about this ambiguity, the more Joanna pointed out to me that it was both a terrible and wonderful part of life: terrible because you can't count on anything for sure - like certain good health and no possibility of cancer; wonderful because no human being knows when another is going to die - no doctor can absolutely predict the outcome of a disease. The only thing that is certain is change. Joanna calls all of this 'delicious ambiguity.' 'Couldn't there be comfort and freedom in no one knowing the outcome of anything and all things being possible?' she asked. Was I convinced? Not completely. I still wanted to believe in magic thinking. But I was intrigued. ~ Gilda Radner

Humor is just truth, only faster! ~ Gilda Radner

In my mid-twenties, I said to myself: 'I can't perform anymore!' I didn't know what I wanted to do. I didn't perform for a while, then ended up doing a one-woman show about Gilda Radner having cancer. It was called 'Gilda Defying Gravity,' and I did it on the Lower East Side. It was great; people really came out and supported me. ~ Spencer Kayden

Show business is like riding a bicycle - when you fall off, the best thing to do is get up, brush yourself off and get back on again. ~ Gilda Radner

The wonderful thing about Gilda Radner was that she was not a person who disappointed. ~ Anne Beatts

It's such an act of optimism to get through a day and enjoy it and laugh and do all that without thinking about death. What spirit human beings have! ~ Gilda Radner

I think dogs are the most amazing creatures;
they give unconditional love.
For me they are the role model for being alive. ~ Gilda Radner

I think clothes should make you feel safe. I like clothes you want to go to sleep in. I sometimes stand in front of a mirror and change a million times because I know I really want to wear my nightgown. ~ Gilda Radner

Cancer is probably the most unfunny thing in the world, but I'm a comedian, and even cancer couldn't stop me from seeing the humor in what I went through. ~ Gilda Radner

I love being a woman. You can cry. You get to wear pants now. If you're on a boat and it's going to sink, you get to go on the rescue boat first. You get to wear cute clothes. It must be a great thing, or so many men wouldn't be wanting to do it. ~ Gilda Radner

[Roseanne Roseannadanna line:] It's always something. ~ Gilda Radner

Adopted kids are such a pain - you have to teach them how to look like you. ~ Gilda Radner

You cannot live in Los Angeles for any period of time without eventually trying to write a screenplay. It's like a flu bug that you catch ... Even the plumber has a screenplay in his truck. ~ Gilda Radner

The goal is to live a full, productive life even with all that ambiguity. No matter what happens, whether the cancer never flares up again or whether you die, the important thing is that the days that you have had you will have lived. ~ Gilda Radner

I've learned what I can control is whether I am going to live a day in fear and depression and panic, or whether I am going to attack the day and make it as good a day, as wonderful a day, as I can. ~ Gilda Radner

My life had made me funny, and cancer wasn't going to change that, ~ Gilda Radner

It's always something. ~ Gilda Radner

I have always found men who were funny, irresistible. It's rare that I ever based love on looks or superficial things, but it a guy made me laugh-and that didn't mean he had to be in comedy professionally - I was hooked. ~ Gilda Radner

The girls that I grew up with, and my friends and I, we just never had interests in common. I loved comedy. I loved Saturday Night Live, Gilda Radner, Lucille Ball, and Goldie Hawn movies. I just wanted to laugh. I liked women in comedy, and I liked male comics as I got a little older. My interests just never matched up with other girls'. ~ Amy Schumer

There are those who open their hearts to others ... who never think twice about giving of themselves. They are the wonderful warmhearted people who make all the difference in our lives. ~ Gilda Radner

I'm so full I can't hear. ~ Gilda Radner

What we put into every moment is all we have. You can drug yourself to death or you can smoke yourself to death or eat yourself to death, or you can do everything right and be healthy and then get hit by a car. Life is so great, such a neat thing, and yet all during it we have to face death, which can make you nuts and depressed. ~ Gilda Radner

Motherhood ... is an act of infinite optimism. ~ Gilda Radner

There is no real security except for whatever you build inside yourself. ~ Gilda Radner

Fame changes a lot of things, but it can't change a lightbulb. ~ Gilda Radner

I'd much rather be a woman than a man. Women can cry, they can wear cute clothes, and they are the first to be rescued off of sinking ships. ~ Gilda Radner

I always was trying to make people laugh as a kid. I was a big fan of Carol Burnett and Gilda Radner. I watched them and I remember feeling as a child, when I heard the laughter they got, a little jealous that they made someone laugh like that. ~ Leah Remini

Every time I got disappointed I'd remember the Roseannadanna philosophy that says that you shouldn't cry over split milk 'cause if you spill some milk and instead of cleaning it up you just walk over it and start crying, they're gonna put you on lithium. ~ Gilda Radner

Having cancer gave me membership in an elite club I'd rather not belong to. ~ Gilda Radner

Cancer changes your life, often for the better. You learn what's important, you learn to prioritize, and you learn not to waste your time. You tell people you love them. My friend Gilda Radner used to say, 'If it wasn't for the downside, having cancer would be the best thing and everyone would want it.' That's true. If it wasn't for the downside. ~ Gilda Radner

[Emily Litella line:] Never mind. ~ Gilda Radner

I love funny people. I met and became friends with some of the funniest people ever. Gilda Radner, bless her soul; Martin Short; Dave Thomas; Eugene Levy. ~ Paul Shaffer

I grew up in front of a television. I guess I'll grow old inside of one. ~ Gilda Radner

There are no guarantees. There are no promises, but there is you, and strength inside to fight for recovery. And always there is hope. ~ Gilda Radner

And last week, when he finally began to erase it, he noticed something very strange: the accent on the letter E was actually formed from a piece of materiel. We all watched as he stared at the letter E for a very long time. Then he slowly unpeeled the rolled-up cloth fro the blackboard and unfurled the biggest pair of polka dot panties anyone in the room had ever seen. ~ Jennifer Allison

No one can be Gilda twenty-four hours a day. ~ Rita Hayworth

Gilda: How severe is the corporal punishment here?
Mrs. McCracken: Honey, nobody's going to spank you here. Don't worry. ~ Jennifer Allison

So many people: Lucille Ball is the earliest incarnation of a woman I thought was funny, Joan Rivers, Roseanne, Carol Burnett, Gilda Radnor, down to current times, where you have Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, and Kristen Wiig. ~ Chelsea Peretti

Literature...describes a descent. First, gods. Then demigods. Then epic became tragedy: failed kings, failed heroes. Then the gentry. Then the middle class and its mercantile dreams. Then it was about you--Gina, Gilda: social realism. Then it was about them: lowlife. Villains. The ironic age...Literature, for a while, can be about us...:about writers. But that won't last long. How do we burst clear of all this? And he asked them: Whither the novel? ... Supposing...that the progress of literature (downward) was forced in that direction by the progress of cosmology (upward--up, up). For human beings, the history of cosmology is the history of increasing humiliation. Always hysterically but less and less fiercely resisted, as one illusion after another fell away. ~ Martin Amis

Men fell in love with Gilda, but they wake up with me. ~ Rita Hayworth

Besides, you know how I love the theater, and let's face it-a wedding is like a big show followed by a cast party. ~ Jennifer Allison

Every man I knew went to bed with Gilda ... and woke up with me. ~ Rita Hayworth