Bette Davis Quotes

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

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

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

Pray to God and say the lines.

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

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

I've lost my faith in science.

I've always liked men better than women.

Success only breeds a new goal

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

Wave after wave of love flooded the stage and washed over me, the beginning of the one great durable romance of my life.

I'm the nicest goddamn dame that ever lived.

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

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

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

I will not retire while I've still got my legs and my makeup box.

I don't think of myself as a character actress - that's become a phrase which means you've had it.

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

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

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

I am just too much.

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

Love is not enough. It must be the foundation, the cornerstone- but not the complete structure. It is much too pliable, to yielding.

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

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

Joan Crawford is a movie star. I am an actress.

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

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

Life is the past, the present and the perhaps.

Oh Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars. - Now, Voyager

When a man gives his opinion, he's a man. When a woman gives her opinion, she's a bitch.

Old age ain't no place for sissies.

Old age ain't for sissies

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

I was never very interested in boys - and there were plenty of them - vying with one another to see how many famous women they would get into the hay.

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

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.

Old age is no place for sissies.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

I don't take the movies seriously, and anyone who does is in for a headache.

Everybody has a heart. Except some people.

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

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

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

Your luck is how you treat people.

Yes, burn your bridges.

Strong women only marry weak men.

The male ego with few exceptions is elephantine to start with.

To look back is to relax one's vigil.

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

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.

I work to stay alive.

Today everyone is a star - they're all billed as 'starring' or 'also starring'. In my day, we earned that recognition.

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

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.

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

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

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.

May each of my grandsons know, at an early age, what his life's ambition is
and may he be successful in his pursuit of that goal.

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.

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

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

I don't think in business it matters whether you're a man or a woman if you can do your job and have a brain.

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

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

I will never be below the title.

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.

In this rat-race everybody's guilty till proved innocent!

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

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

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

I was the Marlon Brando of my generation.

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

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

I have often seen an actor laugh off the stage, but I don't remember ever having seen one weep.

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

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

Technicolor makes me look like death warmed over.

Sex is God's joke on human beings.

There's only one way to work
like hell.

It is my last wish to be burried sitting up.

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

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

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

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

This became a credo of mine ... attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.

I wouldnt piss on Joan Crawford if she were on fire

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.

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.

I went back to work because someone had to pay for the groceries.