Elaine Stritch

“You can't be funny unless you're tragic, and you can't be tragic unless you're funny.”

“I have not had any of that surgical stuff. I am too curious to find out exactly how I progress every day of my life naturally. That is what fascinates me.”

“I never thought about living in New York. I just thought it was great.”

“Certain type of actresses get younger instead of older. I always say, 'Only ingenues age.'”

“There will always be ladies who lunch. Always. And apparently they live a long time.”

“As a diabetic, I'm a walking picnic. I have to eat measured amounts of food at certain times.”

“There's certainly nothing lasting and definite about the theater.”

“Betty White is probably a very nice woman.”

“Diabetes is a lousy, lousy disease.”

“The people in New York - their humor is on a level that goes, uh, very deep, you know?”

“I always say, 'If you can't give a reason for the banana peel being in the alley, then don't have the comic slide over it.' Do you understand what I mean? First explain how the banana peel got there quickly. And then there's a reason for all the comedy.”

“I don't want to see a movie twice. I don't want to do anything twice.”

“I mention I'm going home, and I'm a star immediately! This used to happen with my boyfriends - as soon as I'd say, 'I gotta go home now,' they fell in love.”

“I think it's the wrong way around to say, 'When you get older move to the country.' I think when you get older you move to New York.”

“I love reviews. Anybody who tells you they don't read reviews is a liar.”

“You have to be very, very good looking to get ahead in motion pictures.”

“Honestly, this is a big thing to say, but I don't think I've ever been bored. If I even get an inkling of it, I split.”

“Let me tell you about those convents. All that crap about extending the pinkie finger while sipping tea is a myth. Convent schools are breeding grounds for great broads and occasionally one-of-the-boys. Convent schools teach you to play against everything, which is what I'm still doing.”

“I care about money, very much. I want it. I don't ever want to be without it. My mother once said about me, 'Elaine has to have money.'”

“Fear is the base of what everybody does wrong in their lives.”