Betty White famous quotes

I had to make a major decision with myself because I just don't think you can do both: try to have a baby career and raise it and have a baby baby and raise it. And to try to do justice to either one. It was a very conscious decision on my part not to have children - which I have never regretted.
-- Betty White

#Baby #Children #Thinking

Sex is pretty funny, let's face it. And the more seriously we take ourselves, the funnier sex gets, I think.
-- Betty White

#Sex #Thinking #Faces

I'm a teenager trapped in an old body.
-- Betty White

#Teenager #Body

When I started in television, it was brand new. It was the miracle over in the corner of your room. Now the audience has seen every story line. People have heard every joke. They can predict the plot almost before a show starts. That's a hard, sophisticated audience to reach.
-- Betty White

#People #Miracle #Plot

Now that I'm 91, as opposed to being 90, I'm much wiser. I'm much more aware and I'm much sexier.
-- Betty White

#Wiser

So much of the humor on new sitcoms plays to the lowest common denominator. Wit isn't nearly given as much attention as slipping on a banana peel. So much of the writing is so coarse, so obvious that it doesn't provide a shock, never mind a laugh. What makes something funny is alluding to it without laying it out explicitly. You let the audiences fill in the gaps and that's where the laughs come.
-- Betty White

#Writing #Play #Laughing

Retirement is not in my vocabulary. They aren't going to get rid of me that way.
-- Betty White

#Teacher #Retirement #Vocabulary

Having a live audience makes a world of difference to the acting. It keeps your timing sharp. When something doesn't work, the actor can sense the reaction from the audience and quickly move on.
-- Betty White

#Moving #Differences #Acting

If one has no sense of humor, one is in trouble.
-- Betty White

#Sense Of Humor #Trouble

Humor is like music. It's a rhythm, and you just kind of get the rhythm of it, and you have to know not to let the beat go too long, but to leave a beat in there for it to gel.
-- Betty White

#Long #Kind #Beats

There is no fool like an old fool.
-- Betty White

#Fool

The thing that I love about television there are no more than two or three people watching you at a time. If there are more than two or three people in a room they're talking to each other, they're not listening to you.
-- Betty White

#Talking #Two #People

We didn’t have Facebook in my day, we had a phone book but you wouldn’t waste an afternoon on it
-- Betty White

#Book #Phones #Afternoon

Being blessed with good health gives you the strength and loving what you do and - is a privilege that keeps you going. So I'm just happy as a lark.
-- Betty White

#Blessed #Giving #Privilege

Facebook just sounds like a drag, in my day seeing pictures of peoples vacations was considered a punishment
-- Betty White

#Vacation #Punishment #Sound

We actors can't take the credit. We love to try to claim the credit.
-- Betty White

#Trying #Actors #Credit

I've enjoyed the opposite sex a lot. Always have. Always will.
-- Betty White

#Sex #Opposites

I think the best kind of comedy is the least self conscious. I think if you just sort of let the comedy happen without the elbow nudge, did you get it, did you get it. I love straight face comedy or subtle - relatively subtle comedy.
-- Betty White

#Thinking #Self #Elbows

I have a two-story house and a bad memory, so I'm up and down those stairs all the time. That's my exercise.
-- Betty White

#Memories #Exercise #Two

I'm blessed with good health for which I'm deeply grateful, so for that reason, I feel so good. Everybody else is far more excited about the 90 than I am.
-- Betty White

#Grateful #Blessed #Excited

Keep the other person's well being in mind when you feel an attack of soul-purging truth coming on.
-- Betty White

#Funny Inspirational #Soul #Mind

I've always had a bawdy sense of humor. My father was a traveling salesman and he would bring jokes home. He would say, "Honey, you can take this one to school, but you can't take that one to school."
-- Betty White

#Father #Home #School

If everyone took personal responsibility for their animals, we wouldn't have a lot of the animal problems that we do. I'm a big spay-and-neuter supporter. Don't have babies if you're not going to take care of those babies. We don't need more. We just need to take care of the ones we have. Take responsibility and breathe kindness.
-- Betty White

#Baby #Kindness #Responsibility

I don't seem to require a lot of sleep. I just - if I get four, five good hours, I'm fine. But sleeping is sort of dull. There's a lot of other good stuff that you can do without just lying down and closing your eyes.
-- Betty White

#Lying #Sleep #Eye

You can always tell about somebody by the way they put their hands on an animal.
-- Betty White

#Animal #Hands #Way

Get at least 8 hours of beauty sleep. 9 if you're ugly.
-- Betty White

#Sleep #Sleeping Beauty #Ugly

You're never too old for anything!
-- Betty White

I go out to the kitchen to feed the dog, but that's about as much cooking as I do.
-- Betty White

#Dog #Cooking #Kitchen

I won't do anything that is connected with drugs. I've seen drugs ruin so many people's lives. I don't think there's anything cute about drugs. And I don't believe in celebrating them.
-- Betty White

#Cute #Believe #Thinking

I just make it my business to get along with people so I can have fun. It's that simple.
-- Betty White

#Fun #Simple #People

People forget the good that zoos do. If it weren't for zoos, we would have so many species that would be extinct today.
-- Betty White

#Zoos #People #Would Be

I didn't know what Facebook was, and now that I do know what it is, I have to say, it sounds like a huge waste of time.
-- Betty White

#Sound #Waste #Wasting Time

I think a handwritten letter - a lot of guys don't realize what that means.It's those little romantic touches that tell a lady, "I like a lot of people, but you have a special place in my heart."
-- Betty White

#Heart #Mean #Thinking

I may be a senior, but so what? I'm still hot.
-- Betty White

#Senior #Hot #May

I still like to see that a man opens the door. I like those touches of chivalry that are fast disappearing. If I sound old-fashioned, it's because I'm as old as I am! But it's just polite.
-- Betty White

#Men #Doors #Sound

Vodka is kind of a hobby.
-- Betty White

#Women #Hobbies #Kind

I'm blessed with learning easily. I've always had a good thing about memorizing quickly, and I just leave the script kind of open somewhere, and as I walk by I'll just take a swipe at it and then go on about my business and pretty soon it sticks.
-- Betty White

#Blessed #Goes On #Scripts

All creatures must learn to coexist. That’s why the brown bear and the field mouse can share their lives in harmony. Of course, they can’t mate or the mice would explode.
-- Betty White

#Fields #Bears #Harmony

My blessing is I'm blessed with good health. If I weren't feeling good or if I didn't have the energy, then it's not that much fun. But this way, you can get away with murder because you're going to be 90 in January.
-- Betty White

#Fun #Blessed #Blessing

I think we're losing our sense of humor instead of being able to relax and laugh at ourselves. I don't care whether it's ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, or whose ox is being gored.
-- Betty White

#Thinking #Ethnicity #Laughing

Retirement is not a dirty word, I am just enjoying what I am doing. If they want me to retire, then stop asking me. Ask and I will say yes unless it is something I really don't like.
-- Betty White

#Retirement #Dirty #Asking

You don't luck into integrity. You work at it.
-- Betty White

#Integrity #Luck

I think older women still have a full life. Maybe the writers don't address it these days, but it doesn't change the fact.
-- Betty White

#Thinking #Addresses #Facts

Wilderness is harder and harder to find these days on this beautiful planet, and we're abusing our planet to the point of almost no return.
-- Betty White

#Beautiful #Return #Wilderness

Gravity has taken over me from time to time. But otherwise than that, I'm blessed with good health. That's the bottom line.
-- Betty White

#Blessed #Taken #Lines

You know what the problem that animal activists sometimes have? They only concentrate on the heartbreaking things to the point where the general public thinks, 'Oh, here comes those animal folks again and I'm going to hear all the things I don't want to hear.'
-- Betty White

#Animal #Thinking #Heartbreaking

I don't know people get so anti-something. Just mind your own business, take care of your own affairs, and don't worry about other people so much.
-- Betty White

#Positivity #People #Worry

It's your outlook on life that counts. If you take yourself lightly and don't take yourself too seriously, pretty soon you can find the humor in our everyday lives. And sometimes it can be a lifesaver.
-- Betty White

#Everyday #Sometimes #Everyday Life

We laugh a lot. That's for sure. Sure beats the alternative, doesn't it?
-- Betty White

#Inspirational #Laughing #Alternatives

Once someone has had the good fortune to share a true love affair with a Golden Retriever, one's life and one's outlook is never quite the same.
-- Betty White

#Golden Retrievers #Never Quit #Affair

I'm a big cockeyed optimist. I try to accentuate the positive as opposed to the negative.
-- Betty White

#Trying #Negative #Bigs

Hot dogs and Red Vines and potato chips and French fries are my favorite foods.
-- Betty White

#Dog #Hot #Vines

I think a lot of people like hidden-camera shows where they think they're spying on somebody who doesn't know they're looking at them. And nobody takes it seriously - you either enjoy it and get a laugh out of the reactions or not.
-- Betty White

#Thinking #People #Laughing

Snow always inspires such awe in me. Just consider one tiny snowflake alone, so delicate, so fragile, so ethereal. And yet, let a billion of them come together through the majestic force of nature, they can screw up a whole city.
-- Betty White

#Cities #Snow #Inspire

It's a little known fact that one in three family pets gets lost during its lifetime, and approximately 9 million pets enter shelters each year. That's why it's a wonderful thing to get your pet microchipped and registered with your contact information because then they can be located and the owners can track where their pets are.
-- Betty White

#Years #Track #Pet

I don't care who anybody sleeps with. If a couple has been together all that time - and there are gay relationships that are more solid than some heterosexual ones - I think it's fine if they want to get married. I don't know how people can get so anti-something.
-- Betty White

#Couple #Sleep #Gay

Friendship takes time and energy if it's going to work. You can luck into something great, but it doesn't last if you don't give it proper appreciation. Friendship can be so comfortable, but nurture it-don't take it for granted.
-- Betty White

#Appreciation #Giving #Luck

Animals don't lie. Animals don't criticize. If animals have moody days, they handle them better than humans do.
-- Betty White

#Lying #Animal #Pet

The bottom line is, I'm blessed with good health. On top of that, I don't go around thinking 'Oh, I'm 90, I better do this or I better do that.' I'm just Betty. I'm the same Betty that I've always been. Take it or leave it.
-- Betty White

#Blessed #Thinking #Lines

I've worked with Morris Animal Foundation for more than 40 years now, and I'm so proud of all they've done to advance veterinary medicine for animals worldwide.
-- Betty White

#Animal #Years #Medicine

I've worked with the Los Angeles Zoo for 45 years, and we have this magnificent photographer, Tad Motoyama. He takes these wonderful, wonderful animal pictures. All through the years he's given me copies of these pictures. Well, I have all these gorgeous ones, so I said, 'Tad, I want to do a book with your picture on one side.'
-- Betty White

#Zoos #Book #Animal

If you get into a Broadway show and it doesn't work, you're a failure. And if it does work, you may be stuck for who knows how long. It just doesn't sound great to me!
-- Betty White

#Long #Sound #Doe

If you have one good series, you know, it's a blessing. Two good series is unusual. Three is a phenomenon, but right now, I'm working with these wonderful women on 'Hot in Cleveland,' and Valerie Bertinelli, and Wendy Malick and Jane Leeves are like, it's like the buddy-ship we had on 'Golden Girls' and 'Mary Tyler Moore.'
-- Betty White

#Girl #Blessing #Two

It's been phenomenal, but everybody keeps congratulating me on my resurgence and my big comeback. I haven't been away, guys. I've been working steadily for the last 63 years.
-- Betty White

#Years #Guy #Lasts

One thing they don't tell you about growing old - you don't feel old, you just feel like yourself. And it's true. I don't feel eighty-nine years old. I simply am eighty-nine years old.
-- Betty White

#Years #Age #Growing

Long ago, I did a five-and-a-half-hour-a-day, six-day-a-week talk show for four years, early on, in Los Angeles - local show. And when you are on that many hours with no script, you know, you get very comfortable, maybe overly comfortable with that small audience.
-- Betty White

#Years #Long #Half

The audience today has heard every joke. They know every plot. They know where you're going before you even start. That's a tough audience to surprise, and a tough audience to write for. It's much more competitive now, because the audience is so much more - I want to say 'sophisticated.'
-- Betty White

#Writing #Plot #Want

Take personal responsibility. A lot of people go, 'Well, I'll get a dog because I have a kid and a kid needs a dog.' And it doesn't work out for that dog and the dog is on the street.
-- Betty White

#Dog #Kids #Responsibility

Why retire from something if you're loving it so much and enjoying it so much, and you're blessed with another group of people to work with like the gang on 'Hot in Cleveland?' Why would I think of retiring? What would I do with myself?
-- Betty White

#Blessed #Thinking #People

I enjoy being busy, I really do. Remember, I'm the stub end of the railroad. I have no family, so I'm not taking busy time away from people that I should be spending it with. So I'm just relaxing and enjoying it.
-- Betty White

#People #Railroads #Remember

A lady likes to be complimented on her looks, her eyes, her figure. But the personality comments are much appreciated.
-- Betty White

#Eye #Personality #Looks

A lot of people think this is a goodie two-shoes talking. But we do have a tendency to complain rather than celebrating who we are. I learned at my mother's knee it's better to appreciate what's happening... I think we kind of talk ourselves into the negative sometimes.
-- Betty White

#Mother #Thinking #Talking

Animal lover that I am, a cougar I am not.
-- Betty White

#Animal #Lovers #Animal Lover

A good friend of mine was Lucy Ball. Her mother and my mother were best friends.
-- Betty White

#Mother #Good Friend #Balls

I think it's your mental attitude. So many of us start dreading age in high school and that's a waste of a lovely life. 'Oh... I'm 30, oh, I'm 40, oh, 50.' Make the most of it.
-- Betty White

#Birthday #Attitude #School

When I realized I could use Facebook as a way to communicate directly with my fans, I thought it would be a great idea.
-- Betty White

#Ideas #Fans #Would Be

I really don't care with whom you sleep. I just care what kind of a decent human being you are.
-- Betty White

#Sleep #Care #Kind

I'm so compulsive about stuff, I know if I had ever gotten pregnant, of course, that would have been my whole focus. But I didn't choose to have children because I'm focused on my career. And I just don't think, as compulsive as I am, that I could manage both.
-- Betty White

#Children #Thinking #Careers

I don't know where I learned elephants like their tongues slapped. Whatever turns you on.
-- Betty White

#Elephants #Tongue #Turns

My mother and dad were big animal lovers, too. I just don't know how I would have lived without animals around me. I'm fascinated by them - both domestic pets and the wild community. They just are the most interesting things in the world to me, and it's made such a difference in my lifetime.
-- Betty White

#Mother #Dad #Animal