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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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