“In sitcoms, the women are so beautiful, understanding and well-bred. They have humor, but sort of display it with a twinkle of the eye and not a guffaw. But there’s no juice in that for me.”

At least I’m not playing other people for a change. It’s a very odd place to be… I feel I’m an actress who sings a bit.

I suddenly realized that comedy, for me, was just being honest, and playing it for real. I’ve seen so many wonderful actors who turn into creatures from another planet when they’re told they are supposed to be playing comedy.

Many years ago, I was in a Broadway show and I had to wear a fox fur around my shoulders. One day my hand touched one of the fox’s legs. It seemed to be in two pieces. Then it dawned on me…. her leg had probally been snapped in two by the steel trap that had caught it.

But that’s one of the nice things about doing a stage show, if something doesn’t work out, you have the luxury of working on it over time.

I was raised in the theater and, as it turned out, a TV show was like performing a new one-act play. So, it was really no different.

I’d never even been to Wrigley Field. I never even enjoyed baseball that much, but I loved being there, the crowd was lovely, and they all sang with me!

You know, I spend most of my life turning things down. There’s a lot of crap out there.

I can’t imagine working without and audience.

PETA has a proven track record of success. Each victory PETA wins for the animals is a stepping stone upon which we build a more compassionate world for all beings – and we will never give up our fight until all animals are treated with respect and kindness.

Making lasting gifts for animals in our estate plans is perhaps the single most important thing we can do to ensure animals have the strongest possible voice for their protection.

I… was not too happy to suddenly take on this public role thrust upon me. They just assumed I was the Joan of Arc of the women’s movement. And I wasn’t at all. It put a lot of unnecessary pressure on me.

I’m not playing a role. I’m being myself, whatever the hell that is.

I come from a small town in Maryland. I came to California in 1972 to begin Maude.

I believe that you’re here on Earth for a short time, and while you’re here, you shouldn’t forget it.

I really cut my teeth on off-off-off Broadway shows.

I wish there was something more that performers could do other than get out there and sing at benefit performances. I wish I felt that if I had an empty room I’d like to bring in someone and make it a hospice, but I’m not Mother Teresa. I can’t do that.

While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.

I’ve looked that old scoundrel death in the eye many times but this time I think he has me on the ropes.

Nothing that isn’t a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconsistency.

Every time I look into his eyes I just want to take the ice cream or whatever I’ve got in my hand and rub it into his face. That’s how much I like him.

Now every girl is expected to have: Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy.

Seeing is more than a physiological phenomenon… We see not only with our eyes but with all that we are and all that our culture is. The artist is a professional see-er.

They say that when you’re about to die, your life flashes before your eyes. They never tell you that when you watch someone you once loved dying, hovering between this life and the next, it’s twice as painful, because you’re reliving two lives that traveled one road together.

One’s eyes are what one is, one’s mouth is what one becomes.