Ethel Merman Quotes

There's such a thing as theater discipline. One player doesn't appropriate another's inventions

I work as often as I want and yet I'm free as a bird

The only things I read are gossip columns. If I read three pages of a book, I'm out like a light. When I pick up the book again, I've forgotten what I've read and have to start over again. By page three, even if I've just awakened from a nine -hour nap, I fall asleep again. So if anyone gives me a book, it had better have lots of pictures.

I mentioned that I was thinking of getting out of the business after Call Me Madam. I thought maybe I should become a homebody.

Cole Porter wrote Anything Goes and four more hits for me

Who's happy these days?

Now what kind of an attitude is that, 'These things happen?' They only happen because this whole country is just full of people who, when these things happen, they just say, 'These things happen,' and that's why they happen! We gotta have control of what happens to us.

Once I had the attention, all I had to do was deliver.

As far as dramas are concerned, it's considered passe for playwrights to turn out anything the average person can understand

I wouldn't change one thing about my professional life, and I make it a point not to dwell on my mistakes

Eisenhower was my war hero and the President I admire and respect most

Be yourself -- it's the one thing you can do better than anyone else.

I've made a wonderful living playing that theatrical character - the professional brassy dame

I'll pat myself on the back and admit I have talent. Beyond that, I just happened to be in the right place at the right time

I remember Tallulah (Bankhead) telling of going into a public ladies' room and discovering there was no toilet tissue. She looked underneath the booth and said to the lady in the next stall, 'I beg your pardon, do you happen to have any toilet tissue in there?' The lady said no. So Tallulah said, 'Well, then, dahling, do you have two fives for a ten?'

My father taught me to read music and play the piano-but not well, even though people have said that I'm a natural musician

Mom claimed that I could carry a tune at 2 or 3 years of age. Maybe she was a little prejudiced.

I can hold a note as long as the Chase National Bank.

When I'm asked how to succeed in show business, I always say I haven't the foggiest

My beloved Mom and Pop always rated tops with each other, and that's the way it will always be

I'll admit - I was honored to be on the cover of Time

Any audience that gets a laugh out of me gets it while I'm facing them

I can never remember being afraid of an audience. If the audience could do better, they'd be up here on stage and I'd be out there watching them.

I was lucky enough to have the songs in my first show written by George and Ira Gershwin. Then Cole Porter wrote five shows for me

The slapdash way producers used to assemble a show seems a little unbelievable when we talk about them now

There have been people who have tried to take advantage of me. They want to be linked to me just because I'm Ethel Merman.

Cole Porter had a worldwide reputation as a sophisticate and hedonist

I have plenty of invitations to go places, lots to do. If I'm not working, I go to have my hair taken care of and work at needlepoint

In my case, things have pretty much been handed to me

I've never suffered stage fright. That fascinates people.

Always give them the old fire, even when you feel like a squashed cake of ice.

Broadway has been very good to me. But then, I've been very good to broadway.

[Cole Porter] sang like a hinge.

I am known to be able to take care of myself when I become angry. I don't mince words.

I take a breath when I have to.

You'll never prove you're too good for a job by not doing your best.

I was born in my parents' bedroom on January 16. The World Almanac says it was 1909. I say it was 1912. But what difference does it make as long as I feel 33?

Of my four marriages, the one to Bob Levitt is the only one I don't regret

I have been ambitious to be a somebody from the time I was 5 years old

I wouldn't trust any man as far as you can throw a piano

Mom and Pop were proud of my popularity, but from their point of view, show business was no way to make a living.

I wasn't straining at the bit to become a movie star any more than I had plotted to get out of vaudeville and into Broadway musicals