My mother would only let us go to the musicals.
BETTE MIDLERI’m not interested in perfection. The universe is perfect, and there are some works of art that we see as perfect, but human beings aren’t perfect.
More Bette Midler Quotes
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There’s a kind of emotional exploration you plumb with a friend that you don’t really do with your family.
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You can feel compassion for others without feeling victimized yourself.
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I have a ball – and it keeps my heart rate up. I get to wear fabulous clothes. I get to make people laugh. That’s my core business, and that’s where I’ll always return.
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It is true that in this culture, they throw you out when you get older. I see it all the time, especially in my business. At my age, you’re playing somebody’s mother – and there aren’t even a lot of those roles!
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Some say love, it is a razor that leaves your soul to bleed.
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I loved the photographs of people wearing elaborate makeup and costumes – they really pulled at me inside. I was in that library every week for years, until I was about 13. I had a rich interior life, because I didn’t have much of a social life.
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A lot of people have no access to beauty. When I was growing up, my mother had only a few pretty things to look at.
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[On Helen Reddy:] She ought to be arrested for loitering in front of an orchestra.
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I read a comment that made me think I should stop singing for a while. And I didn’t want to stop singing, because it was the only thing I loved. At first I thought,
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I bear no grudges. I have a mind that retains nothing.
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My parents have not insisted that we go to college, but she wanted us to learn. Teacher, librarian, secretary, nurse. All my siblings were employed. But I wanted to be the boss, an independent contractor.
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The first time I saw a picture of [fabled actress] Ethel Barrymore – she was on Broadway and she was wearing pearls. I thought, “That’s who I should grow up to be.” It’s odd, because it was her physical image that I wanted;
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It’s important that you all agree on what the parameters are and what you can accomplish – and not get pissed off or beat yourself up for what you can’t accomplish.
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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.
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I think the essence of humor has not changed. It’s all about surprise, facilitating follows. But the context of humor has changed.
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Where did I do well?” When I did this assessment of my life, I said to myself, “It was really good.”
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I always look old when I work because I get so upset and tense that my face wrinkles up like a prune, I can’t stop it.
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I tried to charm the pants off Bob Dylan, but everyone will be disappointed to learn that I was unsuccessful. I got close – a couple of fast feels in the front seat of a Cadillac.
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If I don’t feel right about what I’m in, I don’t feel right about anything.
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I’m so glad to be back in New York. Los Angeles can be so cold, so cruel after you’ve been-what’s the word?-oh yes: ‘fired.’
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I never know how much of what I say is true.
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We’re all divine, but I was the only one who had the nerve to call myself that.
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Marriage is such hard work. And it’s full of rage and real human drama.
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hen 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.
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If you pick up a ukulele, it will make you unbelievably happy.
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I’m looking for something that gives me a chance to stretch. Because I have my own work, and I can do anything I want in my own work – juggle, tap dance, anything I want.
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