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Joan Rivers
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“I started my career in a town so small the local clinic was called Fred's Hospital and Grill.”
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“I wear the midi because I feel if you're going to look ugly, you may as well look this year's ugly.”
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“With the pollution of our rivers today they are changing the signs from 'No Fishing' to 'No Fish.'”
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“Having a baby can be a scream.”
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“... my cousin Shirley, who never complains, screamed and screamed when she was having her baby. True, this was just during conception.”
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“When my husband Edgar and I were courting, he said he couldn't wait to have a baby. It was only after we were married that he changed his mind and decided that I should have the baby.”
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“Having a baby is definitely a labor of love.”
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“There is not one female comic who was beautiful as a little girl.”
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“I was my own buddy in camp.”
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“Any form of complacency is the kiss of death for any professional.”
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“[On Elizabeth Taylor:] Is she fat? Her favorite food is seconds.”
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“The worst thing anyone has ever said about me is that I'm fifty. Which I am. Oh that bitch. I was so hurt.”
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“Your anger can be 49 percent and your comedy 51 percent, and you're okay. If the anger is 51 percent, the comedy is gone.”
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“Somehow, some way, every person in the arts has to find an accommodation with disappointment and embarrassment. They are the pollen in the air we breathe. If you must go into the arts, go into them for yourself alone. On some basic level you must enjoy the act of doing it ... Otherwise, you are going to end up frustrated and unhappy. Recognition in the arts is luck and gravy.”
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“... to maintain success, stamina is more important than talent. You have to learn to be a marathon runner.”
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“I am not lucky. I am the type who would go to Lourdes and drown in the waters.”
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“I was absorbing a sorry truth of show business — rejection is the norm and acceptance the oddity. I was learning to cut the tops off my highs and stay with the lows where the rejections and letdowns would be shallow.”
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“I know now that everybody in the arts is forever a beginner. Experience counts for a great deal and very little. Every night onstage I feel I am starting from scratch, still not quite sure what I am doing and where I am going, thrown by the simplest thing that goes wrong.”
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“Emotional troubles are like landfill. Get them outside, and the air disintegrates them.”
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“Show business can be an addiction. ... An audience would laugh at me one night, and I would chase that high for another three months.”
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“My mother could make anybody feel guilty — she used to get letters of apology from people she didn't even know.”
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“She [my mother] was a very elegant woman. When a flying saucer landed on the lawn, she turned it over to see if it was Wedgwood.”
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“Does fashion matter? Always — though not quite as much after death.”
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“Just remember: Surviving is the best revenge, no matter what the disaster has been.”
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“Life is a movie, and you're the star. Give it a happy ending.”
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“... moving on is a gift you give yourself.”
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“The first rule of survival is: Make your own rules. The hell anyone thinks about the way you're acting; listen only to yourself.”
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“Whatever you do to recover from a loss, people will be critical because they believe that the only way to recover is their way. And you will even run into some people who should be run into by rhinos because they actually don't want to see you get over your tragedy at all; grief is a spectator sport for them.”
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“Self-pity shortens your life ...”
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“To the pessimist the light at the end of the tunnel is another train.”
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“In every human endeavor, persistence is everything.”
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“... if you don't think that all life is improvisation, then you haven't been paying attention. Life is what happens to you while you're making other plans.”
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“A German sense of humor is an oxymoron.”
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“In life the only thing that you can expect is the unexpected; the only surprise is a day that has none.”
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“Marriage isn't a contest to see who is most often right. Marriage requires being what the Japanese call 'the wise bamboo,' which means you bend so you don't break. Treat your spouse with the flexibility and respect you would give to a top client. Think how we treat clients; We smile, we are polite, we listen to their ideas. Never forget that your spouse is your most important client.”
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“How to fool yourself into feeling younger: When you go to restaurants, always check a coat and a skateboard.”
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“... 'old age' is always ten years more than we are.”
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“Don't talk to me about gravity. When I get out of bed in the morning, I have to be careful not to step on my breasts.”
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“... you have to do more than just kill time or time will quickly kill you.”
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“... keep moving. It's hard for old age to hit a moving target.”
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“[On plastic surgery:] My motto is: 'Anything that can be lifted should be lifted. Anything that falls should be caught. And try to catch any falling stuff before it hits the ground.'”
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“There is nothing funny about aging: It is rotten and depressing. Anyone who tells you otherwise just hasn't been paying attention.”
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“People say that money isn't the key to happiness, but I always figured if you have enough money, you can have a key made.”
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“I don't exercise. If God had wanted me to bend over, he would have put diamonds on the floor.”
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“The first time I see a jogger smiling, I'll consider it.”
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“A man can sleep around, no questions asked, but if a woman makes nineteen or twenty mistakes she's a tramp.”
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“Edgar had a heart attack, and I'm to blame. We were making love, and I took the bag off my head.”
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“Half of all marriages end in divorce — and then there are the really unhappy ones.”
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“Boy George is all England needs — another queen who can't dress.”
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“[Signature phrase:] Can we talk?”
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“Trust your husband, adore your husband, and get as much as you can in your own name.”
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“My best birth control now is just to leave the lights on.”
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“I was born in 1962. True. And the room next to me was 1963.”
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“I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes — and six months later you have to start all over again.”
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“Don't cook. Don't clean. No man will ever make love to a woman because she waxed the linoleum — 'My God, the floor's immaculate. Lie down, you hot bitch.'”
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“She had more hands up her dress than the Muppets.”
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“Omaha is a little like Newark, without Newark's glamour.”
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“I knew I was an unwanted baby when I saw that my bath toys were a toaster and a radio.”
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“Run scared ... and they never catch you.”
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“She's so fat, she's my two best friends. She wears stretch kaftans. She's got more chins than the Chinese telephone directory.”
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“It's been so long since I made love, I can't even remember who gets tied up.”
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“Mick Jagger has big lips. I saw him suck an egg out of a chicken. He can play a tuba from both ends. This man has got child-bearing lips.”
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“A friend of mine confused her valium with her birth control pills — she had fourteen kids but didn't give a shit.”
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“I told my mother-in-law that my house was her house, and she said, 'Get the hell off my property.'”
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“[When told that her grandchild had her nose:] I didn't get this nose until I was thirty-four.”
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“I said to my husband, 'Why don't you call out my name when we are making love?' He said, 'I don't want to wake you up.'”
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“The one thing women don't want to find in their stockings on Christmas morning is their husband.”
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“I could never be in a cult. For starters, they never accessorize properly. David Koresh had no fashion sense, Jim Jones wore leisure suits, and I don't care how charismatic Osama bin Laden was, an AK-47 and an insulin drip do not take the place of drop earrings or a well-placed brooch.”
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“I would not want to live if I could not perform. It's in my will. I am not to be revived unless I can do an hour of stand-up.”
Joan Rivers, U.S. comedian, entertainer
(1933 - 2013)
Real name: Joan Alexandria Molinsky Sanger Rosenberg.