Bette Davis

I work to stay alive.

Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.

Oh, don't let's ask for the moon. We've already got the stars.

I sent my flowers across the hall to Mrs Nixon but her husband remembered what a Democrat I am and sent them back.

Oh dont lets ask for the moon. Weve already got the stars.

An affair now and then is good for a marriage. It adds spice, stops it from getting boring... I ought to know.

Love is not enough. It must be the foundation the cornerstonebut not the complete structure. It is much too pliable too yielding.

Basically, I believe the world is a jungle, and if it's not a bit of a jungle in the home, a child cannot possibly be fit to enter the outside world.

An affair now and then is good for a marriage. It adds spice, stops it from getting boring I ought to know.

I do not regret one professional enemy I have made. Any actor who doesn't dare to make an enemy should get out of the business.

I don't think of myself as a character actress - that's become a phrase which means you've had it.

I was never very interested in boys - and there were plenty of them - vying with one another to see how many famous women they would get into the hay.

Today everyone is a star - they're all billed as 'starring' or 'also starring'. In my day, we earned that recognition.

It's a rare man who can stand being around an intelligent woman, let alone married to her.

Gay Liberation? I ain't against it, it's just that there's nothing in it for me.

Pleasure of love lasts but a moment Pain of love lasts a lifetime.

Wave after wave of love flooded the stage and washed over me, the beginning of the one great durable romance of my life.

Everybody has a heart. Except some people.

Psychoanalysis. Almost went three times - almost. Then I decided what was peculiar about me was probably what made me successful. I've seen some very talented actors go into analysis and really lose it.

I am just too much.

I am doomed to an eternity of compulsive work. No set goal achieved satisfies. Success only breeds a new goal. The golden apple devoured has seeds. It is endless.

We movie stars all end up by ourselves. Who knows? Maybe we want to.

Pleasure of love lasts but a moment, Pain of love lasts a lifetime.

With the newspaper strike on, I wouldn't consider dying.

There comes a time in every womans life when the only thing that helps is a glass of champagne.

I don't take the movies seriously, and anyone who does is in for a headache.

The only reason anyone goes to Broadway is because they can't get work in the movies.

There are new words now that excuse everybody. Give me the good old days of heroes and villains, the people you can bravo or hiss. There was a truth to them that all the slick credulity of today cannot touch.

I went back to work because someone had to pay for the groceries.

Brought up to respect the conventions, love had to end in marriage. I'm afraid it did.

Love is not enough. It must be the foundation, the cornerstone-but not the complete structure. It is much too pliable, too yielding.

My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose.

In this business, until you're known as a monster you're not a star.

The best time I ever had with Joan Crawford was when I pushed her down the stairs in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

I never did pal around with actresses. Their talk usually bored me to tears.

This has always been a motto of mine: Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.

I often think that a slightly exposed shoulder emerging from a long satin nightgown packs more sex than two naked bodies in bed.

I will not retire while I've still got my legs and my make-up box.

I survived because I was tougher than anybody else.

Hollywood always wanted me to be pretty, but I fought for realism.

To look back is to relax one's vigil.

That's me: an old kazoo with some sparklers.

From the moment I was six I felt sexy. And let me tell you it was hell, sheer hell, waiting to do something about it.

If you have never been hated by your child you have never been a parent.

I have often seen an actor laugh off the stage, but I don't remember ever having seen one weep.

Men become much more attractive when they start looking older. But it doesn't do much for women, though we do have an advantage: make-up.

When a man gives his opinion he's a man. When a woman gives her opinion she's a bitch.

Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work

It is my last wish to be burried sitting up.

The only way you can become a legend is in your coffin.

I'd luv to kiss ya, but I just washed my hair.

In this rat-race everybody's guilty till proved innocent!

I was the Marlon Brando of my generation.

Without wonder and insight, acting is just a trade. With it, it becomes creation.

Life is a jest; and all things show it. I thought so once; but now I know it.

Strong women only marry weak men.

Old age is no place for sissies.

Locations are all tough, all miserable. I never left the sound stage for 18 years at Warners. We never went outside the studio, not even for big scenes.

Sex is God's joke on human beings.

Id marry again if I found a man who had 15 million and would sign over half of it to me before the marriage and guarantee hed be dead in a year.

I've lost my faith in science.

I will never be below the title.

To fulfill a dream, to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given a chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy.

A sure way to lose happiness, I found, is to want it at the expense of everything else.

Acting should be bigger than life. Scripts should be bigger than life. It should all be bigger than life.

The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he's dead.

I'm the nicest goddamn dame that ever lived.

Good actors I've worked with all started out making faces in a mirror, and you keep making faces all your life.

People often become actresses because of something they dislike about themselves: They pretend they are someone else.

If you've never been hated by your child, you've never been a parent.

I've always liked men better than women.

Why am I so good at playing bitches? I think it's because I'm not a bitch. Maybe that's why Miss Crawford always plays ladies.

I'd marry again if I found a man who had fifteen million dollars, would sign over half to me, and guarantee that he'd be dead within a year.