Quotes by Bette Midler

People have an obligation to live up to their potential.

Give a girl the correct footwear and she can conquer the world.

The worst part of having success is trying to find someone who is happy for you.

If you're passionate about something, then you should pick up your flag and run with it.

The worst part about success is trying to find someone who is happy for you.

After 30, a body has a mind of its own.

When the night has been too lonely
And the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only
For the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter
Far beneath the bitter snows
Lies the seed that with the sun's love
In the spring becomes the rose.

If they at the audition don't like the way you sound they won't buy you anyway, ripped dress or no ripped dress, ass hanging out or no ass hanging out.

I had a hard-scrabble childhood with my parents. I have a lot of baggage. To come down to the footlights and accept the audience's affection inside a Broadway theater -- that didn't come easily to me.

I didn't belong as a kid, and that always bothered me. If only I'd known that one day my differentness would be an asset, then my early life would have been much easier.

The Internet has changed everything. People will be discovered online. People buy music online. It's a completely different way to get entertainment.

I read neither good nor bad about me. I let it not even in my life, so it has no effect on me. I am very sensitive.

Romance is an illusion. Well, romance is not a complete illusion, but it's ephemeral. It does not last.

I've forbidden my daughter to have grandchildren, I'm too young.

If you're frightened, you're out of luck.

If somebody makes me laugh, I'm his slave for life.

I have my standards. They're low, but I have them.

Life is not fair. And you have to choose your battles, because there are some that you cannot win. If you're passionate about something, then you should pick up your flag and run with it.

I wish America would spend even half as much time complaining about plastics in our oceans as we do about actresses' plastic surgery.

I come from an overly confident place. But I'm overconfident because of feelings of inferiority.

There are bugs and there are the pigeons and other predators, but you shouldn't be afraid of them, because this is how nature works.

The old forms of entertainment are not extinct. Live performances are the pinnacle. If you can something that people want to see live, then you have a great career.

When I finally did stop and look at my life, I realized that I had done what I'd set out to do. In my pitiful little way, I had climbed the mountain I had chosen. And there I was, on top.

When it's time to shuffle off this mortal coil, you leave your ashes to be composted.

If you pick up a ukulele, it will make you unbelievably happy.

If only I'd known my differentness would be an asset, then my earlier life would have been much easier.

I got so far away from what they told you in acting class: Do something different. Producers kept offering me the 'Sister Act' movie, but I said, 'My fans don't want to see me in a wimple.' I literally said, 'My fans don't want to see me in a wimple.'

Honey, I can smell the scent of another woman from 500 paces.

That's why I'm concerned about education, because it helps our children see other worlds. Education is my next big thing. When music and art were taken out of the schools, I went berserk!

Education is my next big thing. When music and art were taken out of the schools, I went berserk!

Most people don't deserve to be spoken of in the same breath as Chaplin or Lucille Ball.

Unfortunately, every time there's a budget crunch in New York, the Parks Department is usually the first to be cut. So they need all the help they can get.

The inventor of the modern foundation garment that we women wear today was a German scientist and opera lover by the name of Otto Titsling.

I want to have fun, and I want to give people a good laugh.

Through books and photographs, I saw a world that was not my own -- and I realized that there was another world.

All these rumors about Tom Cruise being gay. I don't believe it. I don't believe it for one minute. He hasn't been to one of my shows.

America is so caught up in this celebrity mania!

You can feel compassion for others without feeling victimized yourself.

There's a kind of emotional exploration you plumb with a friend that you don't really do with your family.

If I don't feel right about what I'm in, I don't feel right about anything.

I'm looking for something that gives me a chance to stretch. Because I have my own work, and I can do anything I want in my own work -- juggle, tap dance, anything I want.

I believe that Judy Garland's artistry was so fine. I mean, when people say: 'oh, she brought so much of her life to her music', I don't really believe that. I believe that she didn't have to. She just was a moving human being. That was her gift.

When my daughter was younger we showed her all the great musicals. And the great dramas and great comedies, and the one that she took to the most was Some Like It Hot.

Here I am, one of the most colorful women of my time -- if not of my block -- being made to sound positively legumelike in printed interviews.

Me, I'm just a hack. I'm just a schlep-per. I just do what I can do.

Life is like cooking your masterpiece recipe. You have to get the right ingredients,have the right mixture and the right cooking time to reveal the PERFECT and DELICIOUS TASTE of your craft.

I decided years ago not to read stories about myself anymore. Each one is a potential minefield: Whatever it says, you're bound to take it the wrong way. Why do it if you know it's going to make you miserable?

For days on end, I would hardly speak, and when I did only the vilest sort of gibberish would spout forth. I became morose and fat. Unapproachable, except when eating -- and then only by waiters.

My parents have not insisted that we go to college, but she wanted us to learn. Teacher, librarian, secretary, nurse. All my siblings were employed. But I wanted to be the boss, an independent contractor.

I love nature, in spite of what it did to me.

Sometimes my brain goes on CD shuffle. You know, you put a bunch of CD's on and hit play and random things come out.

Some say love it is a river that drowns the tender reeds. Some say love, it is a razor that leaves your heart to bleed. Some say love, it is a hunger, an endless aching need. I say love, it is a flower and you, its only seed.

I fear for the future of the planet. But in a funny way, I'm even sanguine about that.

I'm the last of the truly tacky women. I do trash with flash and sleaze with ease.

You have to think you're the greatest thing since sliced bread, but you have to know that you're not.

For some people, a park is the only place in their entire world where they can see something beautiful.

You have to be alert. When my daughter, Sophie, came out of the womb, she was instantly alert, as if she had been here before. And she was a little disappointed that she was here again.

There comes a time whenyou haveto let yourclothesgo out in the world and try to make it on their own.

From the age of 14 until I was 50, I just got on a treadmill and ran. I never stopped to assess what I was doing or to pat myself on the back.

I've always said that people have unrealistic expectations.

Cats always seem so very wise, when staring with their half-closed eyes. Can they be thinking, I'll be nice, and maybe she will feed me twice?

I have a ball -- and it keeps my heart rate up. I get to wear fabulous clothes. I get to make people laugh. That's my core business, and that's where I'll always return.

If someone were to say seriously, I'm divine, she'd have to be locked up. There are lots of people in mental institutions going around saying I'm God. But because I'm funny about it, they haven't locked me up yet. And I don't give myself airs, either.

A person's life is a journey, a road. Sometimes you go off the road and sometimes you stay on all the way through. But you are the only one on that road. It's your road.

It's important that you all agree on what the parameters are and what you can accomplish -- and not get pissed off or beat yourself up for what you can't accomplish.

The outside world doesn't have a lot to offer. You have to make your own heaven in your own home.

In a marriage, you struggle and struggle and struggle, and then you realize that you have to ride the horse in the direction it's going. You stop trying to pull the reins in another direction.

I already have a Tony for my Broadway concert in '73. It's one of the most precious things I've won.

Through books and photographs, I saw a world that was not my own -- and I realized that there was another world. That's why I'm concerned about education, because it helps our children see other worlds.

Marriage is such hard work. And it's full of rage and real human drama.

It's a different world now: Stars come and go quickly, and there are so many of them. I read a statistic that all the record companies combined used to put out around 3,000 albums in a year. Now they put out something like 30,000!

Only two groups of people intimidate me absolutely: salespeople and the French.

While I was growing up, I believed I could do anything I could think of. So the challenge was always to keep thinking -- to get to where I wanted to be and then to think of somewhere else to go.

I think most of us are torn. We have at least two people at war in our body. One person wants to retire and grow fabulous tomatoes, and the other wants to stand up on a pedestal and be worshipped and get bigger and bigger and bigger until she explodes.

My whole life had been spent waiting for an epiphany, a manifestation of God's presence, the kind of transcendent, magical experience that lets you see your place in the big picture. And that is what I had with my first compost heap.

Humor disarms people. They don't feel threatened.

I mean, can I really create a full, three-dimensional character? I don't know anymore. I'm certainly going to try.

There's the media-driven universe, in which the public perceives you in a superficial way. Then there's the universe that you actually inhabit, where you have to get up even if you didn't sleep so well, and you feel like crap and your face is swollen.

I haven't left my house in days. I watch the news channels incessantly. All the news stories are about the election; all the commercials are Viagra and Cialis. Election, erection, election, erection! Either way we're screwed!

I'd never done a straight play before, never, and it was very hard work -- really, really hard work. It was dense, really wordy, and I was determined to learn every word of it -- not just skip over bits and pieces.

Make sure your life is a rare entertainment! It doesn't take anything drastic. You needn't be gorgeous or wealthy or smart, just very enthusiastic!

I tried to charm the pants off Bob Dylan, but everyone will be disappointed to learn that I was unsuccessful. I got close -- a couple of fast feels in the front seat of a Cadillac.

It's the one who won't be taken that cannot seem to give, and the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live.

I've always said we got married because there was nothing on TV.

I firmly believe that with the right footwear one can rule the world.

GOD is watching us, from a Distance.

On Princess Anne: Such an active, outdoorsy lass. She loves nature in spite of what it did to her.

On Denmark: ... that little country of cottage cheese and courage.

Melbourne is the kind of town that really makes you consider the question 'Is there life after death?

Let the sun stop burning,

Let them tell me love's not worth going through.

If it all falls apart,

I will know deep in my heart,

The only dream that mattered had come true

...In this life I was loved by you.