A biography for Bette Davishasn’t been written yet.
“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.”
“In this rat-race everybody's guilty till proved innocent!”
“A sure way to lose happiness, I found, is to want it at the expense of everything else.”
“Hollywood always wanted me to be pretty, but I fought for realism.”
“An affair now and then is good for a marriage. It adds spice, stops it from getting boring... I ought to know.”
“Without wonder and insight, acting is just a trade. With it, it becomes creation.”
“I never did pal around with actresses. Their talk usually bored me to tears.”
“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.”
“Brought up to respect the conventions, love had to end in marriage. I'm afraid it did.”
“I will not retire while I've still got my legs and my make-up box.”
“This has always been a motto of mine: Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.”
“I went back to work because someone had to pay for the groceries.”
“I don't take the movies seriously, and anyone who does is in for a headache.”
“Old age is no place for sissies.”
“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.”
“I survived because I was tougher than anybody else.”
“Oh, don't let's ask for the moon. We've already got the stars.”
“I've always liked men better than women.”
“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.”