"QUIPS And QUOTES"

It's all right for anybody to be who they are just as long as they don't let their dogs shit in the street. (1975)

"It's been ten years since I lived here in LA, and I have to tell you something. From the bottom of my heart, I've really missed you assholes. You superficial assholes!" (Bette Midler thanks the audience at the close of her triumphant return to Los Angeles in her hit show Kiss My Brass, March 2004)

Vogue on the outside, vague on the inside.

Shut your hole honey, mines making money! (The Depression Tour, 1975-1976)

Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke! (Divine Madness, 1979)

I'm as confident as Cleopatra's pussy.

I bear no grudges. I have a mind that retains nothing.

I never know how much of what I say is true

I have my standards. They may be low, but I have them.

Cherish forever what makes you unique, 'cuz you're really a yawn if it goes.

I married a German. Every night I dress up as Poland and he invades me.
(From the album, "Mud Will Be Flung Tonight")

It's the point of your view that decides what you see.
One man's flop is another man's hit.
From manners to movies, the picture keeps changing,
Depending upon where you sit.
(From her best-selling book, "The Saga of Baby Divine")

Make sure that life is a rare entertainment!
It doesn't take anything drastic.
You needn't be gorgeous or wealthy or smart,
Just very enthusiastic!
(From her best selling book, "The Saga of Baby Divine")

Rap is poetry set to music. But to me it's like a jackhammer.

The worst part of success is trying to find someone who is happy for you.

My idea of superwoman is someone who scrubs her own floors.

If sex is such a natural phenomenon, how come there are so many books on how to do it?

When it's three o'clock in New York, it's still 1938 in London.

I wouldn't say I invented tacky, but I definitely brought it to its present high popularity.

I'm working my way toward divinity.

I feel like a million tonight - but one at a time.

I always try to balance the light with the heavy - a few tears of human spirit in with the sequins and the fringes.

Cats always seem so very wise, when staring with their half-closed eyes. Can they be thinking, "I'll be nice, and maybe she will feed me twice?"

We didn't have a lot of mirrors when I was growing up. We had one mirror, a cracked mirror: You know in my minds eye I'm beautiful, tall and thin and glamourous. (From the book, "Icons", by Denise Worrell)

If I were a boat, I'd be a tugboat. Squat, hardworking, homey, with a touch of whimsy. I've always thought of myself as the Tugboat Annie-type. (11/14/83)

…Everything is so fragmented, and the niches are so tiny, and it's only gonna get worse. It is the Balkanization of music and society, and it panders to really stupid people. (Speaking of marketing and the music business, The Washington Times, 1998)

…I'm a split personality. There's part of me that says be good, pay your taxes, don't go off the deep end. And then there's the other part of me that wants to spit in the subway and show my bazooms..." (People, 05-04-1987)

Audiences have lowered their expectations," she told a Florida newspaper in May. "Things have changed so that you don't ever have to sing in tune. It's over. It'll never be the way it was. It's the tenor of the times. (May 1994)

To say we are now free love, who invented that? That was guys invented that, because the women have all the burden of free love. (BARBARA WALTERS, A CELEBRATION: 100 YEARS OF GREAT WOMEN. , ABC Special Report, 04-30-1999.)

Pleeeeeese! Pleeeeese! People! A diva never, never does requests. (from "Experience the Divine")

In a funny way, I'm just a big housekeeper. Martha Stewart has it to a much worse degree, but it's definitely a compulsion. It's my dictator gene -- 'Let's all live beautiful!' (Ladies Home Journal, 1999)

I' m very happy to be here as a politically active Hollywood woman. I used to be a sexually active Hollywood woman, but these days politics is much safer. (Michael Dukakis Democratic Fundraiser in Beverly Hills, 1988)

In Hawaii I was the chief chunker in a pineapple canning factor. I used to come home smelling like a compote.

If only I'd known that one day my differentness would be an asset, then my early life would have been much easier.

I married a saint and gave birth to an angel.

I'm pretty gutsy, but I'm intimidated by tremendous accomplishment... and by people who are very tall.

We're all divine, but I was the only one who had the nerve to call myself that. And I thought of it first. So there!

My whole life had been spent waiting for an epiphany, a manifestation of God's presence, the kind of transcendent, magical experience that lets you see your place in the big picture. And that is what I had with my first compost heap.

I became more sure of myself as a person when I took the anti-advertising stand and decided I wouldn't let them tell me what personality to have. When I decided that I didn't want to look the way they wanted me to look and decided that I would look exactly the opposite way and do it just the opposite of the way they were telling me to do it. That's when I took control of my own destiny and that's when the success started happening. (Record World - May 19, 1973)

I know now that I can take people on a theatrical adventure or I can take them on a musical adventure or I can take them on an encounter group. Once you eliminate the fear that you can't do it, then you are free. And I'm very nearly free. (Record World - May 19, 1973)

I think I am a little bit of a schizophrenic, because I have a lot of little characters who live inside me and they all have different voices and they all pop out at strange times. It's as much a surprise to me as it is to anybody else. But it's very entertaining. You see, I try never to – not ever - be bored. Oh, yes, dahling, one must nevah, nevah, nevuh be bored. (Stereo Review: June 1977)

People have said nice things about me and incredibly nasty things about me, it's hard for me - I won't say it isn't. But in this business, you can't play it safe. You have to take a lot of risks. You have to take your lumps. You do your best. Some people are gonna love it, some people are gonna hate it, you know? That's the game. (Stereo Review: June 1977)

You know, I like people to make me laugh. It's the only way to survive. The whole thing, after all, is one big joke. So, whatever anyone wants to think about me is fine. That's what I'm here for, that's my role. I can be an object of love, hate, it doesn't matter. As long as I like myself. (Stereo Review: June 1977)

...As for being categorized, I don't think anyone could categorize me at all – because I’m beginning to get all kinds of people now. I love those boys at the baths because they were the first audience to encourage me. They will always mean a lot to me but that doesn't mean that I can't branch out and reach other people, other groups as well ... I mean, I don't categorize myself, so why let anyone else do it and think they have me all figured out? (Rolling Stone: February 15, 1973)

White males, boy. They're so full of shit they're gonna get theirs from the Third World and from women. (People Magazine: January 7, 1980)

I think that people should never stop working no matter how old they are. I think there should be no such thing as retirement. Retirement is the pathway to an early grave. When you loose your work and what interests you, you lose your will to live, and I’m not that kind of person.” (The Advocate: April 23, 1975)

It's dangerous to read reviews – the good ones or the bad ones. I was crippled twice in my career by bad reviews, and I almost don't read them at all anymore. The bad ones hurt your feelings, and the good ones make you forget who you really are: They swell your head and they make you think yours s--- doesn't stink. When you stoop to that, whatever you had flies right out the window and you're just a shell. You're nothing. (New West: March 13, 1978)

That's what the sixties did. The sixties showed us that everybody is full of s---, and that's why the whole dream has broken down. There's no room left for respect. It used to be that there were people who were not full of s---, and you could depend on them for that. Well, no more. If Jesus Christ came back, he'd find it tough sledding today, you know? (New West: March 13, 1978)

Oh, there was a time when I considered being a foreign diplomat. But I didn't think they were appointing women to that sort of post then -- and besides, I wasn’t very diplomatic! (Movie News: 1979)

I am totally addicted to my work. I love it very much and I am always working. When I stop thinking it is like I am dead. My brain has to be in a constant state of arousal, that's when I feel the best. (Veronica: March 29, 1980)

They come to see me, and they keep coming back, because I say and do things they'd love to do, but wouldn't dare. I can insult people or be outrageously tacky or vulgar, but people know I'm just kidding. (Photoplay: March 1980)

If you let your character define your personality instead of keeping your true self separate, your character will get you.
(Rolling Stone: December 9, 1982)

If you can accept your differentness and learn to love it and encourage it, then you can be someone wonderful. (Saturday Review, 1983)

It's best not to be too pompous about yourself," she says. "It's better not to need a limousine for your head. Although people think I'm just Divine, I have my share of worries. I worry about growing old and losing my shape, my looks, my hair. As an entertainer, that's my stock and trade. Oh, and I also worry that I don't dance as well as Michael Jackson. (Saturday Review, 1983)

I put up a wonderful front in A View from A Broad and I'm proud of it. Writers should embroider stories all the time. They should entertain people and make them feel good. To entertain, you have to do a certain amount of acting, on the stage as well as on the page. My first book was a lot of acting.(Saturday Review, 1983)

I consider myself a New Yorker. I've had a lot of good times in New York, and I've had a lot of success. I've put a lot of effort into the city, and I really love it, but I was born and brought up in Hawaii. I go there at least a couple of times a year, and I still feel like a Hawaiian. You know, you're always happiest in your childhood home. My heart is there. That's where I'm comfortable. (New York Post, Jan 2, 2004)

"You have to hang on to your health," says Midler, who turned 58 on Dec. 1. "You have to hang on to your wind, so you have to run on the treadmill." It all boils down to this: "When you go on the road, you're going into retreat for as long as the tour lasts. Otherwise you don't make it. "Basically, you live like a monk." (Detroit Free Press, Jan 4, 2004)

"When my guts tell me to go, I go. I wanted to go last year (2002) but I wasn't strong enough. . . . I was pretty tired last year: 9/11 took a big toll on everybody. We were doing lots and lots of benefits, lots of memorials. It was going on and on for a long time, a very sad time. I feel a little bit better now, so here we are." (Detroit Free Press, Jan 4, 2004)

"I've become a good citizen, raised a beautiful daughter, helped a lot in New York City (working with the New York Restoration Project)..... I've achieved a measure of dignity. In life, you're not supposed to get worse as you grow up.... I'm racy and bawdy but not threatening.'' (Ohio Beacon Journal, Jan 1, 2004)

"I did my best work there.(for the movie, "The Rose")It was a time all my dreams were coming true,'' she said wistfully. ``I still work with those wonderful people. There's a little bit of The Rose in the show. We have a couple of songs from it, When a Man Loves a Woman and Keep on Rocking. And we have a couple of surprises to go along with it." (Ohio Beacon Journal, Jan 1, 2004)

"Maybe it sounds like sour grapes ... but I turn the television on and, for the most part, so much of it is garbage. It's incessant. Even the news is garbage," Midler says. "When you watch the news, you used to get the news. Michael Jackson, yes, he did this or didn't do it. But it's not more important than what happened in Iraq. It simply isn't. And this Laci, this guy who did or didn't kill his wife -- this is not news." (2004)

"I opened the door for trashy singers with bad taste and big tits!" (Kiss My Brass, 2004)