Elaine Stritch
I compare Stephen Sondheim with humor, because humor is unanalyzable. You can't analyze humor. You just have to get through it.Collection: Humor
The people in New York - their humor is on a level that goes, uh, very deep, you know?Collection: Humor
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.Collection: Happiness
I think I have more humour in me than anger. But those two things are great bed-fellows, performance-wise.Collection: Anger
Honestly, this is a big thing to say, but I don't think I've ever been bored. If I even get an inkling of it, I split.
Dying is easy. Comedy is hard.
I never thought about living in New York. I just thought it was great.
I don't want to see my family all the time, and they're delighted, I'm sure, to be aware of that.
Quite frankly I don't know how to be happy. I have not a clue.
I just serve others through entertaining. That's when I am happy.
There are a lot of things I do that I don't want to, but I have to. It's truly an emotional need for me to perform.
I mention I'm going home, and I'm a star immediately! This used to happen with my boyfriends - as soon as I'd say, 'I gotta go home now,' they fell in love.
There's something about it that makes sense, Lent. You give something up, and everything's more joyful.
Isn't this fantastic, what a star I am?
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.
My biggest dream was to get out of Michigan - to discover life beyond the Sacred Heart Convent.
I like celebrities. I love people who are famous. Always have.
I like glasses so I can go out without my makeup. Just grab your coat and get your hat and go.
When the hospital sends for me, when the ambulance comes and I ease my way out of the world, I'd rather be in Detroit, Michigan, than Lenox Hill.
I love New York. I went to New York to become an actress, and I did it. And I won all the awards known to man. And I'm happy. And I came home. I came, I saw, I conquered. And it feels great.
I'm loaded with talent.
I loved being on Broadway, but performing has become exhausting, and I just don't want to live in New York anymore. I'm just sick of the competition in New York, the feeling that I always have to rehearse to keep up my performance. I don't feel like rehearsing, even though it should be my favorite thing in the world to do.
If I see someone saying the rosary in the wings, I know they've got talent.
I love audiences. My God, the best friends in the world!
I think taking care of yourself, health-wise, in every way, is a 100 percent winner.
Fans recognize me all over the place. But the second you need anything, they're never around! They're like the police!
I think being boring is just the worst sin of all time.
There will always be ladies who lunch. Always. And apparently they live a long time.
I smoked, I drank, I did all the kicking my heels up type things, but I went to Mass on Sunday.
You can't be funny unless you're tragic, and you can't be tragic unless you're funny.
I love reviews. Anybody who tells you they don't read reviews is a liar.
There were a lot of lyrics that I sang but didn't understand. But I had this facade in performance of looking like I wrote the book.
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.
Diabetes is a lousy, lousy disease.
I am not influenced by other human beings. But I am inspired.
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.
There's something that really frightens me - and that's fear.
I'm a hotel baby, absolutely: it's hard to think of a hotel I haven't stayed in.
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.'
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.
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 think the most interesting New Yorkers are the people who were not born here.
I do believe in the infallibility of the Pope, because I think we have to believe in something.
For me, going to London is like coming home. In fact, I've often entertained the idea of ending my days there.
As a diabetic, I'm a walking picnic. I have to eat measured amounts of food at certain times.
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 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 have no intention of retiring. Even my blood sugar is better when I'm working.
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.'