Valerie Harper

“Mine's called leptomeningeal carcinomatosis. It's incurable. It's terminal. And it's in a tiny space - a huge area all around the brain and up and down the spine. But it's small area where the spinal fluid is. It's microscopic. You can't see it. It isn't lumps that they can say, 'Oh we can zap that.'”

“I'm basically an actress, not a comedienne, and if something comes along that appeals to me, I'll do it.”

“My mother was a Book of the Month Club devotee. I remember she always looked forward to Pearl Buck's books.”

“Life does not owe me a shred.”

“I've always been a team player.”

“All of us have the same thing coming - death. It's waiting. But I don't want to go. I want to live to be 102!”

“I used to get some ego thing out of saying I wasn't a star, just an actress. Forget it. I'm a star. I wanted it. I worked for it. I got it.”

“Miracles occur, or people die the next day.”

“Do not tell somebody how to vote, just go up to them and tell them what Fahrenheit 9/11 meant to you. Fahrenheit will probably not win an Academy Award, but if you put it first on your list, it will become a nominee.”

“I never smoked in my life. Neither did my mother. And so many women I meet whose mothers or aunts or whoever who have gotten lung cancer were no-time smokers.”

“I have cancer. It's in my brain... What are you gonna do about it?”

“Life is amazing; live it to the fullest. Stay as long as you can.”

“Luck is not an acceptable substitute for early detection.”

“Every five minutes, every hour, every day, every year that you waste worrying about your cancer - you have forfeited time that you could have been alive having fun.”

“The disease I have is quite a rare cancer, and it is located in a limited area - a very widespread area, but narrow. So a lot can happen if the cancer starts getting really aggressive, pressing on parts of the brain and causing me to lose either my speech or my ability to think, etc.”

“At an ERA fundraiser years ago, one of my favorite buttons was the one that said, 'Every mother is a working mother.'”

“As physics has proven, we're ultimately particulate matter, which means we are all one. That's why racial and gender bias is so ridiculous.”

“I love sitting at home. I love laying in bed watching television.”

“Don't go to the funeral until the day of the funeral. Live this day.”

“Though I'm 75, I'm not looking forward to death, but it's there for all of us.”