Image is everything, and the voice or the idea or the song is hardly anything at all. Half the time the person isn’t even doing the singing. I’m a bit cynical about this [music] business.
BETTE MIDLERI made a lot of people laugh, made a lot of people cry in a good way, brought a lot of joy to people, picked up a lot of garbage. And in all those years, I saw a lot. I went to foreign lands. I met interesting people. And I got it!
More Bette Midler Quotes
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If only I’d known my differentness would be an asset, then my earlier life would have been much easier.
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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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You can’t just have a clean public space – you also have to have people willing to use it, and something that will draw them in.
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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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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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Sometimes my brain goes on CD shuffle. You know, you put a bunch of CD’s on and hit play and random things come out.
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Do you want to live and work in a garbage dump? I don’t. That’s partly because I grew up in the most pristine environment possible – Hawaii, where it is sacrilege to leave your garbage on the ground.
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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 would much rather watch myself than listen to myself. The moving is second nature, but the listening… that’s the art.
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Culturally, it’s very hard to change people’s attitudes about public space.
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I hope to keep entertaining in some way until I can’t physically entertain any longer. It’s what I was born to do, and I love this profession.
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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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When I finally did stop and look at my life, I realized that I had done what I’d set out to do. In my pitiful little way, I had climbed the mountain I had chosen. And there I was, on top.
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Lay a foundation – get my foot in the door, and then undoubtedly, of course, I would be offered great roles as soon as I grew up enough to handle them.
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Make sure your life is a rare entertainment! It doesn’t take anything drastic. You needn’t be gorgeous or wealthy or smart, just very enthusiastic!
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