Bette Davis

The real actor has a direct line to the collective heart.

— Bette Davis

Discipline is a symbol of caring to a child. He needs guidance. If there is love, there is no such thing as being too tough with a child. A parent must also not be afraid to hang himself. If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent.

— Bette Davis

Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night! [As Margo Channing in All About Eve]

— Bette Davis

We movie stars all end up by ourselves. Who knows? Maybe we want to.

— Bette Davis

Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.

— Bette Davis

Love is not enough. It must be the foundation, the cornerstone -- but not the complete structure. It is much too pliable, too yielding.

— Bette Davis

I'd marry again if I found a man who had 15 million and would sign over half of it to me before the marriage and guarantee he'd be dead within a year.

— Bette Davis

If you have never been hated by your child, you have never been a parent.

— Bette Davis

My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose.

— Bette Davis

I'll play with it first and tell you what it is later.

— Bette Davis

This became a credo of mine: attempt the impossible in order to improve your work.

— Bette Davis

The act of sex, gratifying as it may be, is God's joke on humanity. It is man's last desperate stand at superintendency.

— Bette Davis

The weak are the most treacherous of us all. They come to the strong and drain them. They are bottomless. They are insatiable. They are always parched and always bitter. They are everyone's concern and like vampires they suck our life's blood.

— Bette Davis

I am doomed to an eternity of compulsive work. No set goal achieved satisfies. Success only breeds a new goal. The golden apple devoured has seeds. It is endless.

— Bette Davis

To fulfill a dream to be allowed to sweat over lonely labor, to be given a chance to create, is the meat and potatoes of life. The money is the gravy.

— Bette Davis

A sure way to lose happiness, I found, is to want it at the expense of everything else.

— Bette Davis

Each in a marriage must make a contribution. Of course. What was that old song? "You're the cream in my coffee . . . You're the salt in my stew"? How great and how true. One has a right to expect such a complement. I was always eager to salt a good stew. The trouble was that I was expected to supply the meat and potatoes as well.

— Bette Davis

If you don’t work, what the hell do you do? Sit around and rot! The retirement age of 65 has killed millions. Luckily, I’m in an industry with no retirement. They only retire you if you don’t make money for them.

— Bette Davis

Don’t you hate people who drink white wine? I mean, my dear, every alcoholic in town is getting falling-down drunk on white wine. They think they aren’t drunks because they only drink wine. Never, never trust anyone who asks for white wine. It means they’re phonies.

— Bette Davis