Bette Davis Quotes

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Old age ain't for sissies

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

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

Success only breeds a new goal

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

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

Actually, I think business women are better women at home, if you want to know the truth because you do understand what goes into a day's work out in the world, a very nerve-racking affair.

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

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

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

I've lost my faith in science.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I work to stay alive.

Technicolor makes me look like death warmed over.

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.

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

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

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

I think it's just too much trouble to be dishonest and keep up with yourself.

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

If everybody likes you, you're pretty dull.

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.

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

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

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