Elaine Stritch Quotations

All you have to do is say, 'I'm going home,' and you're the most popular girl at the party.

The closer a part is to you, the harder it is to play. Anything else is just imitation. If I'm playing a Russian countess, I get the hat, the accent, the outrageousness. Easy. Playing a murderess? Perfect.

I can't explain chemistry. I really can't. I haven't got a clue what it's all about. It just happens. It's like falling in love. You can't explain why you fall in love or explain why it's this particular person.

You have to be very, very good looking to get ahead in motion pictures.

My idea of serenity - that wonderful word that everybody's trying to get into their life - is call-waiting.

I have not had any of that surgical stuff. I am too curious to find out exactly how I progress every day of my life naturally. That is what fascinates me.

You cannot tell an audience a lie. They know it before you do; before it's out of your mouth, they know it's a lie.

Let me tell you about those convents. All that crap about extending the pinkie finger while sipping tea is a myth. Convent schools are breeding grounds for great broads and occasionally one-of-the-boys. Convent schools teach you to play against everything, which is what I'm still doing.

I love Birmingham, Michigan. It's lovely - you know, it's very similar to the Hamptons.

My movie career - if such a thing even exists - is laughable.

There will always be ladies who lunch. Always. And apparently they live a long time.

Fear is the base of what everybody does wrong in their lives.

There's certainly nothing lasting and definite about the theater.

I always say, 'If you can't give a reason for the banana peel being in the alley, then don't have the comic slide over it.' Do you understand what I mean? First explain how the banana peel got there quickly. And then there's a reason for all the comedy.

This age thing is all up to you. It's like happiness is up to you. You just have to understand what it is before you get it.

I find it easier to abstain than do a little bit of anything. I'm not a 'little bit' kind of dame. I want it all, whatever I do.

I don't think there's any thrill in the world like doing work you're good at.

When I want to do something badly enough, I do it, but there is a practical side of me that thinks I should be paid fairly.

I'm funny when I want to be. And I'm even funny when I don't want to be.

You can't be funny unless you're tragic, and you can't be tragic unless you're funny.

I compare Stephen Sondheim with humor, because humor is unanalyzable. You can't analyze humor. You just have to get through it.

As a diabetic, I'm a walking picnic. I have to eat measured amounts of food at certain times.

I tell the truth, and it has gotten me into a lot of trouble. My dad used to say to me, 'If you tell the truth all day long, you will end up in jail.'

I have no intention of retiring. Even my blood sugar is better when I'm working.

I'm a good acting partner for me... when I don't have anyone else, I do really well!

These performers that go on about their technique and craft - oh, puleeze! How boring! I don't know what 'technique' means. But I do know what experience is.

Audiences are not strangers to me. They're the best friends I've got in my life.

I am not influenced by other human beings. But I am inspired.

I don't have a great talent for explaining myself in acting because I can't explain it.

I think the most interesting New Yorkers are the people who were not born here.

What I want to understand is what I am talking about on the stage. What I don't want to understand is what the government is talking about when the government tells me about taxes.

I never found anyone who could look after me as well as I could look after myself.

I love reviews. Anybody who tells you they don't read reviews is a liar.

I could have made a lot of money doing 'Golden Girls,' and I would have been good. But the image of it! And for me to work with Betty White every day would be like taking cyanide.

All of the writing on '30 Rock' is a joy to go into. It's pretty hot stuff.

Certain type of actresses get younger instead of older. I always say, 'Only ingenues age.'

I care about money, very much. I want it. I don't ever want to be without it. My mother once said about me, 'Elaine has to have money.'

I don't have to go to a doctor and have my face changed. It terrifies me that women do that.

I don't want to see a movie twice. I don't want to do anything twice.

I'm a hotel baby, absolutely: it's hard to think of a hotel I haven't stayed in.

Making clever speeches takes a lot of work and a lot of time.

New Yorkers stop me on the street all the time to say, 'You're terrific! You're the nuts!'

There's something that really frightens me - and that's fear.

Why haven't I made more movies? Nobody asked me.

You never know what is happening to yourself when it is happening.

I love holidays in New York. I love `em. I want to celebrate something all the time and New York has holidays for every day of the week, practically. I like holidays in New York City.

If I see a great performance on television, onstage, in the movies, I go to work the next day with a renewed energy and less fear. These great artists take me out of my life and make me want to go there.

Betty White is probably a very nice woman.

For me, going to London is like coming home. In fact, I've often entertained the idea of ending my days there.

I do believe in the infallibility of the Pope, because I think we have to believe in something.

I don't wear a wig. I'd feel terrible onstage with a wig. I hate to be so 'Actors Studio'-ish, but I like to feel it's me out there.

I like being talked about. I think some people really don't... because they're secure enough and they don't need that.

I think it's the wrong way around to say when you get older move to the country. I think when you get older you move to New York. If you're a nice broad they'll look after you.

The people in New York - their humor is on a level that goes, uh, very deep, you know?

When I'm playing comedy, it is such a crap shoot of what will work and what won't.

Look at the company I'm in here. And I'm so glad none of them won.

Marlon's going to school to learn the Method was like sending a tiger to jungle school.

I've come to the point in my life where less is more. The minute the last hammer fell on the last nail I called the real estate office.

This is for people who have dough. It's expensive. That's the way it is.

I wouldn't have a nose job. I like my nose fine.

Drama drama drama. The public wants it, so let them get the whole ugly mess. Why not?

People will always be around to tell you you're no good or you're wrong or unwise to keep doing what you want to do. They're wrong. They're always wrong. Keep going.

When you're dealing with your life, my God, you gotta tell the truth.

It gets tiring being a smartass.

If you tell the truth all day long, you will end up in jail.

Onstage, nothing is as important as truth, nothing. As soon as you lie, they know it.

New York is like a disco, but without the music

There's something exciting about being afraid.

I felt that I committed myself too much. I promised too much. But that way it's exciting.

Bette Davis taught Hollywood to follow an actress instead of the actress following the camera, and she's probably the best movie actress there's ever been.

This is a time in my life where I'm gonna behave like an elegant human being. Or not.

And why not do something new every day of your life? Change! Change!

I was so happy I didn't have to work that night. That was the truth, because show business is about the hardest profession in the world.

I don't know what to do with Warren Beatty. All I know is that he wasn't attracted to me. That's all right.

I’d like to discover life. Quite frankly I don’t know how to be happy. I have not a clue. I only serve — and I don’t say that with any grandeur. I just serve others through entertaining. That’s when I am happy. I’m not just delighted with myself when I’m entertaining, but I’m happier than when I’m not.

I don't dislike the way I look. I think I look fine. I think I look extraordinary for 88. And I've got energy. Out of my way.

I get sick of saying how hard everything is. It's hard to get up in the morning. Everything's hard. Everything takes effort.

If somebody doesn't have any talent, get off the stage! You're wasting my time.

It's a pain in the ass, show business. And the only time that I really enjoy it is when I'm in front of an audience and they're reacting to me.

The terrifying thing in my life is that I am just an actress. And I have to keep pushing it and getting approval, approval, approval or I don’t think I’m worth two cents. And I am starting to get over it, thank God. And I’m just sad because I don’t have many years left and I wish I had a longer space of time to think that Elaine Stritch is okay.

Well if I had my choice I would not - I wouldn't mind working with Alec Baldwin, but the mother role - I'm kidding. It's terrific. I'll tell you what happened with Alec Baldwin and myself. This is a couple acting together just this side of heaven. He's one of the best actors I've ever worked with in whole life. And I - I'm not overdoing it. I just think he's about the best around today. So I got lucky.

I'm going to do less performing because I'm tired. It's hard to convince anybody that you're just going to take it easy.

Two drinks a day. Two drinks a day. TWO DRINKS A DAY! It doesn't work! Not when you want eleven, and not when you start shopping for wine glasses in the vase department at Bloomingdales.

I love audiences. My God, the best friends in the world!

I like to keep active. I've got too much energy not to.

I want to settle down this last time. I say last, because I don't think I'm in any condition to live a long time from now. The bell's gonna ring pretty soon.

I don't know what the hell I'm doing up there half the time. These performers that go on about their technique and craft - oh, puleeze! How boring! I don't know what technique means. But I do know what experience is. I know in my gut when I've done a scene right.

I don't think I'm gonna die tomorrow or even two weeks from now, or even ever. I just don't know - who the hell knows what's gonna happen to them? Nobody! Isn't that comforting? Nobody has a clue. I like that we don't know. And I like that it's somebody else's decision, not mine.

There's nothing attractive about doing a documentary. Nothing. It's hard, hard work, and I find having all the attention of the day on me a very unattractive proposition.

For my money, insecurity, depression, etc, can be healed by way of El Morocco, sad songs at 4am, and the pop of a champagne cork

Easy does it is what I'm looking for,

It's very disconcerting to start out and to say, "I'm going to tell the truth," and then to realize it's that much trouble.

I've changed a lot, too! I'm different, too. I have far more in some ways to offer and far less in other ways to offer. That's life. And, you know, life goes on!

Everybody's got a sack of rocks.

I don't know what should have happened in my life, but I do know that I'm dancing as fast as I can.

Tony Bennett said to me, "Wow, your talent is amazing." Maybe he's a bore, maybe he's a jerk, but when he said that to me, I didn't need anything more than that.

Woody Allen is a better actor than anybody from the Actors Studio, and he can be anybody he says he is.

Diabetes is a lousy, lousy disease.

I certainly was not the romantic lead. I couldn't be that, because I was not that good looking. And that is something about Hollywood that I do not like at all. Why can't a woman who is just normally good looking fall in love? I mean, everybody in the movies is so good looking.