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Bette Midler

Bette Midler Quotes

Singer-songwriter

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Famous Bette Midler Quotes

“before one actually visits them, everyone tends to think of their favorite countries as one grand Disneyland filled with national monuments and historical treasures conveniently laid out for easy viewing, when what they really are filled with, of course, is people going to work, laundromats and places to buy rat poison.”

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Book:A View from a Broad
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“The first time I saw a picture of [fabled actress] Ethel Barrymore - she was on Broadway and she was wearing pearls. I thought, "That's who I should grow up to be." It's odd, because it was her physical image that I wanted; I had no idea what it was like actually to be her. In those days, we weren't bombarded by images the way we are now, and the ones we did have were more vivid in people's minds.”

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Author:Bette Midler
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“When the movies first started, audiences were dumbstruck to see actresses walking around in evening gowns. They'd never seen anything like that. They wanted to be like those actors and actresses, so the movies informed their behavior. A lot of people started drinking martinis and smoking cigarettes because they felt it was cool.”

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Author:Bette Midler
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“My parents used to park us kids at the public library in downtown Honolulu every Saturday. They'd leave us there at 8 A.M. and pick us up at 4 P.M. - so between those hours, you'd better find something to do! I sat upstairs in the picture room and went through opera, ballet, and theater books. I loved the photographs of people wearing elaborate makeup and costumes - they really pulled at me inside. I was in that library every week for years, until I was about 13. I had a rich interior life, because I didn't have much of a social life.”

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Author:Bette Midler
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“When I turned 50, I threw myself a big birthday party, and I looked seriously at what my life has been about. I recommend this to everybody. Ask yourself, "What have I done? How did I do it? Where'd I mess up? Where did I do well?" When I did this assessment of my life, I said to myself, "It was really good." I made a lot of people laugh, made a lot of people cry in a good way, brought a lot of joy to people, picked up a lot of garbage. And in all those years, I saw a lot. I went to foreign lands. I met interesting people. And I got it!”

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Author:Bette Midler
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“Most people are walking around the city like corpses; they aren't alive enough to notice the trash. They come from other places and they see it as a big garbage dump. Do you want to live and work in a garbage dump? I don't. That's partly because I grew up in the most pristine environment possible - Hawaii, where it is sacrilege to leave your garbage on the ground.”

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Author:Bette Midler
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“One of my first role models was Eugene Lang, a wealthy businessman who went back to his elementary school in East Harlem and addressed the sixth-grade class. He looked out at that sea of faces and said, "If any of you wants to go to college, I will pay for it." When I read that, I burst into tears. It was so generous and so basic. Not fluffy. I can't understand why we scrimp on education and shortchange our kids. Why would the citizenry do that to the people who are going to inherit its republic?”

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Author:Bette Midler
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“Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera are doing pretty well at getting noticed - a lot of people are doing pretty well at it. But you wonder whether they'll last, because many of them don't have the ability to get an audience to love them. You say, "That's a fabulous body" or "I like that song"; you don't say, "I love them because I know them." You can't know them.”

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Author:Bette Midler
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“Twenty-seven people sang 'Wind Beneath My Wings' before I got around to it. A lot of people saw the movie that I sang it in, Beaches, and what they came away with was that song. They turned to their loved ones and said, 'You know, you are the wind beneath my wings!' The song expressed how they felt in a way a simple 'I love you' would not have.”

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Author:Bette Midler
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