Bette davis quotes

I'd luv to kiss ya, but I just washed my hair.

I work to stay alive.

One can be respected with the truth in Hollywood just as much as anywhere else you know or else I wouldn't have had a career.

There comes a time in every woman's life when the only thing that helps is a glass of champagne.

A sure way to lose happiness, I found, is to want it at the expense of everything else.

They say that in Hollywood one can't be honest, but I think honesty counts in Hollywood just as much as it does anywhere else. I think it's just too much trouble to be dishonest and keep up with yourself.

Playing our parts. Yes, we all have to do that and from childhood on, I have found that my own character has been much harder to play worthily and far harder at times to comprehend than any of the roles I have portrayed.

There are new words now that excuse everybody. Give me the good old days of heroes and villains, the people you can bravo or hiss. There was a truth to them that all the slick credulity of today cannot touch.

It's true we don't know what we've got until its gone, but we don't know what we've been missing until it arrives. Pleasure of love lasts but a moment, Pain of love lasts a lifetime.

As a female I think it's a terrible hindrance in business. I think it's a terrible hindrance for any female to have a lot of intelligence in private life, but I think in business sometimes it's even worse because there's deep resentment.

Almost as many inhumanities are committed in the name of love as in the name of religion.

Pleasure of love lasts but a moment, Pain of love lasts a lifetime.

I am doomed to an eternity of compulsive work. No set goal achieved satisfies. Success only breeds a new goal. The golden apple devoured has seeds. It is endless.

The real female should be partly male and the real male should be partly female anyway.

Technicolor makes me look like death warmed over.

The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he's dead.

Without discipline and detachment, an actor is an emotional slob, spilling his insides out. This abandonment is having an unfortunate vogue. It is tasteless, formless, absurd. Without containment there is no art. All this vomiting and wheezing and bursting at the seams is no more great acting than the convulsions of raving maniacs.

You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good . . . Joan Crawford is dead. Good.

Among the reasons marriages fail, sex ranks no higher than fourth, behind money, having only one bathroom, and an inability to communicate, reasons one, two and three.

Old age is no place for sissies.

There was more good acting at Hollywood parties than ever appeared on the screen.

I was the female Marlon Brando of my generation.

Success only breeds a new goal

Without wonder and insight, acting is just a trade. With it, it becomes creation.

I wanted to be the first to win three Oscars, but Miss Hepburn has done it. Actually it hasn't been done. Miss Hepburn only won half an Oscar. If they'd given me half an Oscar I would have thrown it back in their faces. You see, I'm an Aries. I never lose.

With the newspaper strike on, I wouldn't consider dying.

You can lose everything but you can't lose your talent!

You know what nostalgia is, don't you? It's basically a matter of recalling the fun without reliving the pain.

Temperament is something that is an integral part of the artist. Not temper, temperament. There is a vast difference.

Once the love bug wears off, as it inevitably does, you are shocked to discover that you really didn't know the object of your affections at all. We know this to be so, even as we repeat the same mistake over and over and over.

The secret of marriage is: separate bedrooms and separate bathrooms.

I've always liked men better than women.

An affair now and then is good for a marriage. It adds spice, stops it from getting boring... I ought to know.

Acting should be bigger than life. Scripts should be bigger than life. It should all be bigger than life.

I think men have got to change an awful lot. They still prefer the little woman.

We movie stars all end up by ourselves. Who knows? Maybe we want to.

Oh, don't let's ask for the moon. We've already got the stars.

It's a very independent male creature that lives alone, and a lot of independent females who live alone. It's all very sad but it's much easier for both sexes to do it this way nowadays.

In this business, until you're known as a monster you're not a star.

[On gay men:] Let me say, a more artistic, appreciative group of people for the arts does not exist ... They are more knowledgeable, more loving of the arts. They make the average male look stupid.

If everybody likes you, you're pretty dull.

I never said anything that was unprintable. Never said anything just for the sake of being startling.

If you want a thing done well, get a couple of old broads to do it.

You mustn't miss the moment. There's only one first sailing into Rio harbor.

I didn't forget your breakfast. I didn't bring your breakfast. Because you didn't eat your din-din.

Pray to God and say the lines.

Yes, burn your bridges.

If Hollywood didn't work out, I was prepared to be the best secretary in the world.

The only way you can become a legend is in your coffin

I am a woman meant for a man, but I never found a man who could compete.

Basically, I believe the world is a jungle, and if it's not a bit of a jungle in the home, a child cannot possibly be fit to enter the outside world.

What a fool I was to come to Hollywood where they only understand platinum blondes and where legs are more important than talent.

I may not have been wearing a mink coat, but I was traveling with a dog. That should have made you think I was an actress!

If men found out how to give birth to children they'll never propose again.

Everybody has a heart. Except some people.

Never, never trust anyone who asks for white wine. It means they're phonies.

People often become actresses because of something they dislike about themselves: They pretend they are someone else.

You should know me well enough by now to know I don't ask for things I don't think I can get.

Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.

Evil people you never forget them. And that's the aim of any actress-never to be forgotten.

I have eyes like a bullfrog, a neck like an ostrich and long, limp hair. You just have to be good to survive with that equipment.

You've got to know someone pretty well to hate them.

Getting old is not for sissies.

There is a certain ecstasy in wanting things you can't get.

The world's all full of thoughts about wars and space, and tragedies to the world. That's what writers are thinking about because that's what the world is thinking about.

I've lost my faith in science.

The best time I ever had with Joan Crawford was when I pushed her down the stairs in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

There's only one way to work -- like hell.

I'm the nicest goddamn dame that ever lived.

I have been uncompromising, peppery, intractable, monomaniacal, tactless, volatile, and oftentimes disagreeable... I suppose I'm larger than life.

I have been at war from the beginning. I've never looked back before. I've never had the time and it has always seemed so dangerous. To look back is to relax one's vigil.

I wouldn't piss on Joan Crawford if she were on fire.

I survived because I was tougher than anybody else.

Don't you hate people who drink white wine? I mean, my dear, every alcoholic in town is getting falling-down drunk on white wine. They think they aren't drunks because they only drink wine. Never, never trust anyone who asks for white wine. It means they're phonies.

Men become much more attractive when they start looking older. But it doesn't do much for women, though we do have an advantage: make-up.

If you've never been hated by your child, you've never been a parent.

I think I'll have a large order of prognosis negative.

It's a rare man who can stand being around an intelligent woman, let alone married to her.

I've been lucky. I'll be lucky again.

One begins to realize that one is getting old when the birthday candles weigh more than the cake.

I'd marry again if I found a man who had fifteen million dollars, would sign over half to me, and guarantee that he'd be dead within a year.

I would take a bad script and a good director any day against a good script and a bad director.

I was thought to be "stuck up." I wasn't. i was just sure of myself.

I guess I'm larger than life. That's my problem.

Good actors I've worked with all started out making faces in a mirror, and you keep making faces all your life.

I was thought to be 'stuck up.' I wasn't. I was just sure of myself. This is and always has been an unforgivable quality to the unsure.

The only reason anyone goes to Broadway is because they can't get work in the movies.

I was so uncomfortable at a party recently when the conversation droned on about women who are constantly getting married. I was on the edge of my chair, close to squirming in embarrassment because I myself was guilty of four husbands. I finally leaned forward and squeaked, 'But one died!

Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night! - As Margo Channing in All About Eve

I will not retire while I've still got my legs and my make-up box.

There may be a heaven, but if Joan Crawford is there, I'm not going.

The out-of-work actor wears out more than shoe leather. The very sensibilities that make him an artist are shattered by the disregard he is shown as a human being.

You know what I'm going to have on my gravestone? 'She did it the hard way.'

Your luck is how you treat people.

Mother of three; divorcee; American. Twenty years experience as an actress in motion pictures. Mobile still and more affable than rumour would have it. Wants steady employment in Hollywood. (Has had Broadway). References upon request.

Life is the past, the present and the perhaps.

You will never be happier than you expect. To change your happiness, change your expectation.

I never did pal around with actresses. Their talk usually bored me to tears.

One can make more enemies as a female with a brain, I think.

I often think that a slightly exposed shoulder emerging from a long satin nightgown packs more sex than two naked bodies in bed.

Home is where you go to when you've nowhere to go.

Dramatic art in her opinion is knowing how to fill a sweater.

I do not regret one professional enemy I have made. Any actor who doesn't dare to make an enemy should get out of the business.

To look back is to relax one's vigil.

To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given a chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy.

Being called very, very difficult is the beginning of success. Until you're called very, very difficult you're really nobody at all.

If everybody likes you, you are not a very interesting person.

If everyone likes you, you're not doing it right.

I firmly believe, however, that if your children have never hated you, you have failed as a parent.

Success is built on disappointment, and disappointment is inherent in all success.

Gay Liberation? I ain't against it, it's just that there's nothing in it for me.

From the moment I was six I felt sexy. And let me tell you it was hell, sheer hell, waiting to do something about it.

I will never be below the title.

At 50, I thought proudly: Here we are, half century! Being 60 was fairly frightening. You want to know how I spent my 70th birthday? I put on a completely black face, a fuzzy black Afro wig, wore black clothes and hung a black wreath on my door.

I want to die with my high heels on, still in action.

Some young Hollywood starlets remind me of my grandmother's old farmhouse -- all painted up nice on the front side, a big swing on the backside, and nothing whatsoever in the attic.

The act of sex, gratifying as it may be, is God's joke on humanity. It is man's last desperate stand at superintendency.

The real actor - like any real artistj- has a direct line to the collective heart.

She's the original good time who was had by all.

Strong women only marry weak men.

It has been my experience that one cannot, in any shape or form, depend on human relations for lasting reward. It is only work that truly satisfies.

My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose.

People stood on their chairs, cheering and waving. And it was all for me! Waves of love flooded the stage and washed over me. I started to cry. The sweetness of such a moment is impossible to describe. One is both lover and beloved. ... I'd found the one true, enduring romance of my life.

It's better to be hated for who you are, than to be loved for someone you're not. It's a sign of your worth sometimes, if you're hated by the right people.

Discipline is a symbol of caring to a child.He needs guidance.If there is love, there is no such thing as being too tough with a child. A parent must also not be afraid to hang himself. If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent.