it will cleanse itself, and new life forms, maybe better ones, will come. Meanwhile, we’ll have gotten exactly what we deserved: annihilation.
BETTE MIDLERit will cleanse itself, and new life forms, maybe better ones, will come. Meanwhile, we’ll have gotten exactly what we deserved: annihilation.
BETTE MIDLERWhile I was growing up, I believed I could do anything I could think of. So the challenge was always to keep thinking – to get to where I wanted to be and then to think of somewhere else to go.
BETTE MIDLERIf you pick up a ukulele, it will make you unbelievably happy.
BETTE MIDLERThe 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;
BETTE MIDLERI decided years ago not to read stories about myself anymore. Each one is a potential minefield: Whatever it says, you’re bound to take it the wrong way. Why do it if you know it’s going to make you miserable?
BETTE MIDLERI celebrate everyone’s religious holidays. if it’s good enough for the righteous, it’s good enough for the self-righteous, I always say.
BETTE MIDLERMy mother would only let us go to the musicals.
BETTE MIDLERI’ve forbidden my daughter to have grandchildren, I’m too young.
BETTE MIDLERCulturally, it’s very hard to change people’s attitudes about public space.
BETTE MIDLERThe [film] business is run by men, and they’re basically interested in their own species, and they’re not so interested in women belonging to the human race.
BETTE MIDLERHere I am, one of the most colorful women of my time – if not of my block – being made to sound positively legumelike in printed interviews.
BETTE MIDLERI 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.
BETTE MIDLERI’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.
BETTE MIDLERIf sex is such a natural phenomenon, how come there are so many books on how to do it?
BETTE MIDLERImage 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 MIDLERMy 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.
BETTE MIDLER