Bette Davis Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It is my last wish to be burried sitting up.

[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.

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.

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

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

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.

She did it the hard way.

Pray to God and say the lines.

Women are the essential part of the theater but the writers are not writing about women. I think they're too perplexed about the whole female situation probably.

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

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!

Your luck is how you treat people.

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 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.

I'm the nicest goddamn dame that ever lived.

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 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 believe one should be a woman at home.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Getting old is not for sissies.

Yes, burn your bridges.

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

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!

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.

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

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

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

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.

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