Quotes from Bette Davis

You know what nostalgia is, don't you? It's basically a matter of recalling the fun without reliving the pain.

When someone says, "Happy birthday and many happy returns of the day," I usually say, "If God takes up my option." In the motion picture business there were once options, usually yearly. If taken up, your contract was extended for another year by the studio. It is appalling to realize that God has taken up my option for seventy-eight years.

Locations are all tough, all miserable. I never left the sound stage for 18 years at Warners. We never went outside the studio, not even for big scenes.

I survived because I was tougher than anybody else.

Never, never trust anyone who asks for white wine. It means they're phonies.

Wave after wave of love flooded the stage and washed over me, the beginning of the one great durable romance of my life.

I'd like to kiss ya, but I just washed my hair.

One can be respected with the truth in Hollywood just as much as anywhere else you know or else I wouldn't have had a career.

When a man gives his opinion, he's a man. When a woman gives her opinion, she's a bitch.

There comes a time in every woman's life when the only thing that helps is a glass of champagne.

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

Old age ain't no place for sissies.

It's better to be hated for who you are, than to be loved for someone you're not. It's a sign of your worth sometimes, if you're hated by the right people.

The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he's dead.

You should know me well enough by now to know I don't ask for things I don't think I can get.

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

Everybody has a heart. Except some people.

I'm the nicest goddamn dame that ever lived.

I was thought to be 'stuck up.' I wasn't. I was just sure of myself. This is and always has been an unforgivable quality to the unsure.

If everybody likes you, you're pretty dull.

You will never be happier than you expect. To change your happiness, change your expectation.

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.

I am just too much.

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