Through books and photographs, I saw a world that was not my own – and I realized that there was another world. That’s why I’m concerned about education, because it helps our children see other worlds.
One of my first role models was Eugene Lang, a wealthy businessman who went back to his elementary school in East Harlem and addressed the sixth-grade class. He looked out at that sea of faces and said, “If any of you wants to go to college, I will pay for it.”
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.
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.
There’s the media-driven universe, in which the public perceives you in a superficial way. Then there’s the universe that you actually inhabit, where you have to get up even if you didn’t sleep so well, and you feel like crap and your face is swollen.
I 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?
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,
I was brought up on rock-‘n’-roll. It was sort of funny because I couldn’t get interested in anything else – I tried and tried but I couldn’t get into science…or mathematics, I just cut myself off from anything else there was to get interested in.
![Bette Midler Quote - [On Helen Reddy:] She ought to be arrested for loitering in front of an orchestra.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/on-helen-reddy-she-ought-to-be-arrested-for-loiter-683x1024.jpg)
![Bette Midler Quote - 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.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/when-i-started-in-this-music-business-i-had-a-drea.jpg)
![Bette Midler Quote - 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.](https://minimalistquotes.com/images/image-is-everything-and-the-voice-or-the-idea-or-t.jpg)
