Valerie Harper

“I have had a magnificent run.”

“Keep your chin up, and don't go to the funeral - mine or yours or your loved one's - until the day of the funeral because then you miss the life that you have left.”

“It can be frightening. I think, 'I don't want to go.' But I give myself room to grieve.”

“I'm a perfect person to tell people not to give up.”

“You have to look life in the face, doing what you can where you can.”

“I'm not dying until I do.”

“Women and young girls are constantly judging themselves by standards that aren't real.”

“I don't see anything degrading about marriage or homemaking, but my husband and I pool the money we earn, along with the jobs around the house.”

“I've always felt very strongly about human rights for blacks, women, and gays. Our Constitution is about equality for all - that's got to mean something to all of us.”

“I really look at my life as blessed.”

“My husband is the best caregiver in the world.”

“Sometimes I yell at my cancer cells, sometimes I make myself laugh.”

“Talk about a woman of a certain age - Pearl Buck was a great prototype of continuing to work. She was in the hospital dying of cancer, and in the next room was her secretary, typing out her next book.”

“I never did stand-up. If I've been funny ever, it was with other actors.”

“Don't accept or be crippled by the media hype that aging is bad or shameful.”

“Above all, learn to live when you're dying.”

“I really got the 'Rhoda' flavor from studying my stepmother, Angela, who's Italian, not Jewish. There's really so little difference between the speech patterns and family attitudes of Jews and Italians in the New York area, anyway.”

“We have a lot of fear around death, and I thought maybe I can help somebody... I want people to be less scared.”

“We're all terminal; none of us are getting out of this alive.”

“The first Broadway play I ever saw was 'The Bad Seed' by Maxwell Anderson and with Patty McCormack. 'The Bad Seed' was from an extraordinary novel by William March.”