Bette Midler

Education is my next big thing. When music and art were taken out of the schools, I went berserk!

When I moved to New York City in 1965, I wanted to be in theater. I was following my Ethel Barrymore dream. But I was too young to be Ethel.

I had a hard-scrabble childhood with my parents. I have a lot of baggage. To come down to the footlights and accept the audience's affection inside a Broadway theater - that didn't come easily to me.

I got so far away from what they told you in acting class: Do something different. Producers kept offering me the 'Sister Act' movie, but I said, 'My fans don't want to see me in a wimple.' I literally said, 'My fans don't want to see me in a wimple.'

I hope to keep entertaining in some way until I can't physically entertain any longer. It's what I was born to do, and I love this profession.

I try not to drink too much because when I'm drunk, I bite.

I feel like a million tonight - but one at a time.

I sometimes think I should go back to school to learn French and music, but who would have me?

If sex is such a natural phenomenon, how come there are so many books on how to do it?

When it's three o'clock in New York, it's still 1938 in London.

I celebrate everyone's religious holidays. if it's good enough for the righteous, it's good enough for the self-righteous, I always say.

I'm working my way toward divinity.

I'd make a wonderful Lady Macbeth. I'll wear a pair of platform shoes or something.

I mean, can I really create a full, three-dimensional character? I don't know anymore. I'm certainly going to try.

If I could be granted a wish, I'd shine in your eye like a jewel.

Writing a book is not as tough as it is to haul thirty-five people around the country and sweat like a horse five nights a week.

Group conformity scares the pants off me because it's so often a prelude to cruelty towards anyone who doesn't want to - or can't - join the Big Parade.

I bear no grudges. I have a mind that retains nothing.

My husband calls it winging it - the way I just took what the studios gave me, didn't do my homework and avoided roles that would risk my image.

I never know how much of what I say is true.