Bette Midler Quotes

When I started in this [music] business, I had a dream, but it was amorphous, and I had no experience. I just had a fuzzy notion of what life would be like if I became what I pictured.

What I have in me... it's not hard, and it's not cold, and it's not fierce ambition, that's not what it is. It's a drive [for success], but it's not a drive...it's being driven, it's something I have no control over. It's something pushing me, I'm not pushing myself.

A lot of people say that my life is wasted on me because I could be a bigger asshole than I am, but I've chosen not to be.

I bear no grudges. I have a mind that retains nothing.

If you can accept your differentness and learn to love it and encourage it, then you can be someone wonderful.

The [film] industry is an ecosystem that's sick.

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

Find your Light; They can't love you if they can't see you

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

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

Self-esteem is something you have to earn!

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!

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

When you reach a certain age, you have fulfilled your childhood dream and whatever your first or second adulthood led you to do. Then you're in your third adulthood, the one that leads to the grave, and you ask yourself, "What will I do between now and then?" Instead of thinking in terms of glamour, you start thinking in terms of reform - your contribution to the world.

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.

I always wanted to be a performer, I didn't know exactly what kind of performer, all I knew was there were certain things that I liked. I liked movies a whole lot, and I loved music.

Without passion, the powers-that-be can run roughshod over you.

Cherish forever what makes you unique, 'cuz you're really a yawn if it goes.

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

America is so caught up in this celebrity mania!

When I turned 50, I threw myself a big birthday party, and I looked seriously at what my life has been about. I recommend this to everybody. Ask yourself, "What have I done? How did I do it? Where'd I mess up? Where did I do well?" When I did this assessment of my life, I said to myself, "It was really good." I made a lot of people laugh, made a lot of people cry in a good way, brought a lot of joy to people, picked up a lot of garbage. And in all those years, I saw a lot. I went to foreign lands. I met interesting people. And I got it!

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.

All these children [who did not have music and art classes at school] go out into the world without knowing that there is anything other than what they have. Of course, children do look at TV, but what does it give them?

I don't need anyone to write me a show in my style, I would like to do a show in a style that wasn't my style, because that's the only way I can grow up and grow out.

I've always been lucky enough to have great audiences. It has been quite a life.

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.

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.

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

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

Writing a book is not as tough as it is to haul thirty-five people around the country and sweat like a horse five nights a week.

Total contentment is only for cows.

My mother would only let us go to the musicals.

Just remember, during the winter, far beneath the bitter snow, that there's a seed that with the sun's love in the spring becomes a rose.

I'm confident that I'm as intelligent as many people, but I know that I'm not as intelligent as some. So in the presence of hyperintelligent people, I'm a shrinking violet because I don't want to look like a fool. I know a little about a lot and a lot about a little.

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

Twenty-seven people sang 'Wind Beneath My Wings' before I got around to it. A lot of people saw the movie that I sang it in, Beaches, and what they came away with was that song. They turned to their loved ones and said, 'You know, you are the wind beneath my wings!' The song expressed how they felt in a way a simple 'I love you' would not have.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

My daughter very independent. But if she's upset about something, she will absolutely let me know. She's great - a real tough cookie.

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!

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

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.

I think the essence of humor has not changed. It's all about surprise, facilitating follows. But the context of humor has changed. Previously, the jokes were more related to current issues, political. Today people make about each other either funny or about people like Kim Kardashian. It's brutal. Everything is so much vielschmutziger.

I'm mad about God! That's why I'm divine.