Bette Davis famous quotes

A sure way to lose happiness, I found, is to want it at the expense of everything else.
-- Bette Davis

#Happiness #Happy #Want

My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose.
-- Bette Davis

#Work #Passion #Hands

You will never be happier than you expect. To change your happiness, change your expectation.
-- Bette Davis

#Happiness #Weight Loss #Expectations

The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he's dead.
-- Bette Davis

#Courage #Self Confidence #Keys

Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.
-- Bette Davis

#Inspirational #Motivational #Hard Work

I do not regret one professional enemy I have made. Any actor who doesn't dare to make an enemy should get out of the business.
-- Bette Davis

#Regret #Apology #Enemy

Acting should be bigger than life. Scripts should be bigger than life. It should all be bigger than life.
-- Bette Davis

#Acting #Scripts #Should

You should know me well enough by now to know I don't ask for things I don't think I can get.
-- Bette Davis

#Thinking #Enough #Should

Good actors I've worked with all started out making faces in a mirror, and you keep making faces all your life.
-- Bette Davis

#Fake People #Mirrors #Ukulele

I'm the nicest ***** dame that ever lived.
-- Bette Davis

#Dames

There comes a time in every woman's life when the only thing that helps is a glass of champagne.
-- Bette Davis

#Drinking #Wine #Glasses

It's better to be hated for who you are, than to be loved for someone you're not. It's a sign of your worth sometimes, if you're hated by the right people.
-- Bette Davis

#People #Sometimes #Hated

I will not retire while I've still got my legs and my make-up box.
-- Bette Davis

#Sexy #Retirement #Funny Inspirational

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

#High Heels #Want #Action

Discipline is a symbol of caring to a child.He needs guidance.If there is love, there is no such thing as being too tough with a child. A parent must also not be afraid to hang himself. If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent.
-- Bette Davis

#Love #Children #Caring

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.
-- Bette Davis

#Heartless #Quality #Stuck Up

We movie stars all end up by ourselves. Who knows? Maybe we want to.
-- Bette Davis

#Stars #Want #Fame

I would take a bad script and a good director any day against a good script and a bad director.
-- Bette Davis

#Directors #Scripts

I will never be below the title.
-- Bette Davis

#Titles

You should never say bad things about the dead, you should only say good . . . Joan Crawford is dead. Good.
-- Bette Davis

#Should

I survived because I was tougher than anybody else.
-- Bette Davis

#Women #Empowering #Inspirational Women

An affair now and then is good for a marriage. It adds spice, stops it from getting boring... I ought to know.
-- Bette Davis

#Funny Marriage #Add #Spices

Oh, don't let's ask for the moon. We've already got the stars.
-- Bette Davis

#Inspiring #Stars #Moon

I never did pal around with actresses. Their talk usually bored me to tears.
-- Bette Davis

#Bored #Tears #Pals

Everybody has a heart. Except some people.
-- Bette Davis

#Heart #People

I often think that a slightly exposed shoulder emerging from a long satin nightgown packs more sex than two naked bodies in bed.
-- Bette Davis

#Sex #Thinking #Two

To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given a chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy.
-- Bette Davis

#Inspirational #Life #Dream

I'd luv to kiss ya, but I just washed my hair.
-- Bette Davis

#Funny #Life #Witty

If you've never been hated by your child, you've never been a parent.
-- Bette Davis

#Mom #Mother #Children

Old age is no place for sissies.
-- Bette Davis

#Life #Cute #Memorable

Without wonder and insight, acting is just a trade. With it, it becomes creation.
-- Bette Davis

#Acting #Wonder #Creation

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

#Wine #Mean #White

She did it the hard way.
-- Bette Davis

#Tombstone #Way

I was the Marlon Brando of my generation.
-- Bette Davis

#Generations #Brando

Getting old is not for sissies.
-- Bette Davis

#Sissy #Getting Old

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

#Success #Difficult

I have been uncompromising, peppery, intractable, monomaniacal, tactless, volatile, and oftentimes disagreeable... I suppose I'm larger than life.
-- Bette Davis

#Larger Than Life #Uncompromising #Disagreeable

Pleasure of love lasts but a moment, Pain of love lasts a lifetime.
-- Bette Davis

#Love #Missing You #Breakup

I am doomed to an eternity of compulsive work. No set goal achieved satisfies. Success only breeds a new goal. The golden apple devoured has seeds. It is endless.
-- Bette Davis

#Congratulations #Apples #Goal

Hollywood always wanted me to be pretty, but I fought for realism.
-- Bette Davis

#Reality #Hollywood #Realism

To look back is to relax one's vigil.
-- Bette Davis

#Relax #Looks

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

#Party #Acting #Hollywood

People often become actresses because of something they dislike about themselves: They pretend they are someone else.
-- Bette Davis

#People #Actresses #Dislike

The only reason anyone goes to Broadway is because they can't get work in the movies.
-- Bette Davis

#Broadway #Reason

Psychoanalysis. Almost went three times - almost. Then I decided what was peculiar about me was probably what made me successful. I've seen some very talented actors go into analysis and really lose it.
-- Bette Davis

#Successful #Peculiar #Three

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

#Inspiration #Coffins #Legends

You've got to know someone pretty well to hate them.
-- Bette Davis

#Hate #Wells

I didn't forget your breakfast. I didn't bring your breakfast. Because you didn't eat your din-din.
-- Bette Davis

#Food #Breakfast #Forget You

Yes, burn your bridges.
-- Bette Davis

#Relationship #Bridges

Your luck is how you treat people.
-- Bette Davis

#People #Luck #Treats

The secret of marriage is: separate bedrooms and separate bathrooms.
-- Bette Davis

#Marriage #Secret #Bathroom

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

#Meaningful #Missing #Sailing

I've been lucky. I'll be lucky again.
-- Bette Davis

#Lucky

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

#Couple #Age #Done

Old age ain't for sissies
-- Bette Davis

#Inspiration #Age #Sissy

You can lose everything but you can't lose your talent!
-- Bette Davis

#Talent

Don't you hate people who drink white wine? I mean, my dear, every alcoholic in town is getting falling-down drunk on white wine. They think they aren't drunks because they only drink wine. Never, never trust anyone who asks for white wine. It means they're phonies.
-- Bette Davis

#Hate #Fall #Wine

It has been my experience that one cannot, in any shape or form, depend on human relations for lasting reward. It is only work that truly satisfies.
-- Bette Davis

#Experience #Shapes #Rewards

I work to stay alive.
-- Bette Davis

#Alive #Staying Alive

I've lost my faith in science.
-- Bette Davis

#Lost

Almost as many inhumanities are committed in the name of love as in the name of religion.
-- Bette Davis

#Names #Committed #Inhumanity

Success is built on disappointment, and disappointment is inherent in all success.
-- Bette Davis

#Disappointment #Success And Failure #Inherent

Joan Crawford is a movie star. I am an actress.
-- Bette Davis

#Stars #Actresses #Movie Star

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.
-- Bette Davis

#Eye #Hair #Ostriches

Home is where you go to when you've nowhere to go.
-- Bette Davis

#Home #Nowhere To Go

Some young Hollywood starlets remind me of my grandmother's old farmhouse -- all painted up nice on the front side, a big swing on the backside, and nothing whatsoever in the attic.
-- Bette Davis

#Nice #Grandmother #Swings

[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.
-- Bette Davis

#Art #Stupid #Gay

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

#Way #Hell

It's a rare man who can stand being around an intelligent woman, let alone married to her.
-- Bette Davis

#Intelligent #Men #Married

Among the reasons marriages fail, sex ranks no higher than fourth, behind money, having only one bathroom, and an inability to communicate, reasons one, two and three.
-- Bette Davis

#Sex #Two #Inability

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!
-- Bette Davis

#Husband #Party #Four

I firmly believe, however, that if your children have never hated you, you have failed as a parent.
-- Bette Davis

#Children #Believe #Parent

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.
-- Bette Davis

#Art #Emotional #Discipline

May each of my grandsons know, at an early age, what his life's ambition is -- and may he be successful in his pursuit of that goal.
-- Bette Davis

#Ambition #Successful #Goal

I have always felt proud of my Oscars and my numerous nominations. This pride is due to the fact it was the result of voters from the members of my own profession. This, of course, is a great compliment for one's work. I hope each winner of an Oscar is as thrilled as I was when I received mine.
-- Bette Davis

#Pride #Proud #Oscars

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.
-- Bette Davis

#War #Relax #Looks

The real actor - like any real artistj- has a direct line to the collective heart.
-- Bette Davis

#Real #Heart #Actors

Technicolor makes me look like death warmed over.
-- Bette Davis

#Movie #Looks

People stood on their chairs, cheering and waving. And it was all for me! Waves of love flooded the stage and washed over me. I started to cry. The sweetness of such a moment is impossible to describe. One is both lover and beloved. ... I'd found the one true, enduring romance of my life.
-- Bette Davis

#Cheer #People #Romance

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!
-- Bette Davis

#Dog #Thinking #Actors

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

#Artist #Differences #Actors

I wouldnt piss on Joan Crawford if she were on fire
-- Bette Davis

#Fire

Pray to God and say the lines.
-- Bette Davis

#Theatre #Lines #Praying

The best time I ever had with Joan Crawford was when I pushed her down the stairs in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?
-- Bette Davis

#Baby #Art #Entertainment

I have often seen an actor laugh off the stage, but I don't remember ever having seen one weep.
-- Bette Davis

#Laughing #Acting #Actors

I don't think of myself as a character actress - that's become a phrase which means you've had it.
-- Bette Davis

#Character #Mean #Thinking

In this rat-race everybody's guilty till proved innocent!
-- Bette Davis

#Race #Rats #Innocence

There are new words now that excuse everybody. Give me the good old days of heroes and villains, the people you can bravo or hiss. There was a truth to them that all the slick credulity of today cannot touch.
-- Bette Davis

#Hero #People #Giving

With the newspaper strike on, I wouldn't consider dying.
-- Bette Davis

#Inspiration #Memorable #Dying