Betty White Quotes

“Animals don't lie. Animals don't criticize. If animals have moody days, they handle them better than humans do.”

— Betty White

“You don't luck into integrity. You work at it.”

— Betty White

“All creatures must learn to coexist. That's why the brown bear and the field mouse can share their lives in harmony. Of course, they can't mate or the mice would explode.”

— Betty White

“I'm a big cockeyed optimist. I try to accentuate the positive as opposed to the negative.”

— Betty White

“I may be a senior, but so what? I'm still hot.”

— Betty White

Animal lover that I am, a cougar I am not.

— Betty White

Don't try to be young. Just open your mind. Stay interested in stuff. There are so many things I won't live long enough to find out about, but I'm still curious about them. You know people who are already saying, 'I'm going to be 30 - oh, what am I going to do?' Well, use that decade! Use them all!

— Betty White

“When I pontificate, it sounds so, you know, Oh, well, she's preaching. I'm not preaching, but I think maybe I learned it from my animal friends. Kindness and consideration of somebody besides yourself. I think that keeps you feeling young. I really do.”

— Betty White

I am interested in a lot of things - not just show business and my passion for animals. I try to keep current in what's going on in the world. I do mental exercises. I don't have any trouble memorizing lines because of the crossword puzzles I do every day to keep my mind a little limber. I don't sit and vegetate.

— Betty White

“I think a lot of people like hidden-camera shows where they think they're spying on somebody who doesn't know they're looking at them. And nobody takes it seriously - you either enjoy it and get a laugh out of the reactions or not.”

— Betty White

“Why retire from something if you're loving it so much and enjoying it so much, and you're blessed with another group of people to work with like the gang on 'Hot in Cleveland?' Why would I think of retiring? What would I do with myself?”

— Betty White

“I had to make a major decision with myself because I just don't think you can do both: try to have a baby career and raise it and have a baby baby and raise it. And to try to do justice to either one. It was a very conscious decision on my part not to have children - which I have never regretted.”

— Betty White

A good friend of mine was Lucy Ball. Her mother and my mother were best friends.

— Betty White

Long ago, I did a five-and-a-half-hour-a-day, six-day-a-week talk show for four years, early on, in Los Angeles - local show. And when you are on that many hours with no script, you know, you get very comfortable, maybe overly comfortable with that small audience.

— Betty White

“If you have one good series, you know, it's a blessing. Two good series is unusual. Three is a phenomenon, but right now, I'm working with these wonderful women on 'Hot in Cleveland,' and Valerie Bertinelli, and Wendy Malick and Jane Leeves are like, it's like the buddy-ship we had on 'Golden Girls' and 'Mary Tyler Moore.'”

— Betty White

“A lady likes to be complimented on her looks, her eyes, her figure. But the personality comments are much appreciated.”

— Betty White

“My mother and dad were big animal lovers, too. I just don't know how I would have lived without animals around me. I'm fascinated by them - both domestic pets and the wild community. They just are the most interesting things in the world to me, and it's made such a difference in my lifetime.”

— Betty White

“I really don't care with whom you sleep. I just care what kind of a decent human being you are.”

— Betty White

“I kid around a lot, but pranks are not my best strength!”

— Betty White

“Of course, nobody's tearing my door down. If you're successful you're going to intimidate and scare off the people you'd like to spend time with. They're not going to approach you. And the ones who do are often there because you are a celebrity.”

— Betty White

“I'm the luckiest broad on two feet, I'll tell you that. They say once a woman passes 40 she doesn't get any good parts, so I'm blessed.”

— Betty White

“When we started in television, there was that magic box in the corner of the room, and 'Oh my gosh - look what it's doing!'”

— Betty White

“Well, I mean, if a joke or humor is bawdy, it's got to be funny enough to warrant it. You can't just have it bawdy or dirty just for the sake of being that - it's got to be funny.”

— Betty White

“I'm having the time of my life and the fact that I'm still working - how lucky can you get? I'm 90 years old and still able to work as much as I do. That's a privilege.”

— Betty White

“If you get into a Broadway show and it doesn't work, you're a failure. And if it does work, you may be stuck for who knows how long. It just doesn't sound great to me!”

— Betty White

“When I realized I could use Facebook as a way to communicate directly with my fans, I thought it would be a great idea.”

— Betty White

“'Mary Tyler Moore' was - it was my first big hit.”

— Betty White

“I'm blessed with learning easily. I've always had a good thing about memorizing quickly, and I just leave the script kind of open somewhere, and as I walk by I'll just take a swipe at it and then go on about my business and pretty soon it sticks.”

— Betty White

“We didn't have Facebook in my day, we had a phone book but you wouldn't waste an afternoon on it”

— Betty White

“We actors can't take the credit. We love to try to claim the credit.”

— Betty White

“Now that I'm 91, as opposed to being 90, I'm much wiser. I'm much more aware and I'm much sexier.”

— Betty White

“I don't know people get so anti-something. Just mind your own business, take care of your own affairs, and don't worry about other people so much.”

— Betty White

“I'm just happy as a lark having a good health. People say are you thinking about retiring, I don't have time to think about retiring.”

— Betty White

“Humor is like music. It's a rhythm, and you just kind of get the rhythm of it, and you have to know not to let the beat go too long, but to leave a beat in there for it to gel.”

— Betty White

“I love straight-face comedy or relatively subtle comedy. And then I turn around and I find myself doing very broad comedy but it's all fun and you have to keep your sense of humor and not take yourself seriously.”

— Betty White

“I think we're losing our sense of humor instead of being able to relax and laugh at ourselves. I don't care whether it's ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, or whose ox is being gored.”

— Betty White

“I think everybody needs a passion. Whether it's one passion or a hundred, that's what keep life interesting.”

— Betty White

“So much of the humor on new sitcoms plays to the lowest common denominator. Wit isn't nearly given as much attention as slipping on a banana peel. So much of the writing is so coarse, so obvious that it doesn't provide a shock, never mind a laugh. What makes something funny is alluding to it without laying it out explicitly. You let the audiences fill in the gaps and that's where the laughs come.”

— Betty White

“I've always had a bawdy sense of humor. My father was a traveling salesman and he would bring jokes home. He would say, "Honey, you can take this one to school, but you can't take that one to school."”

— Betty White

“Vodka is kind of a hobby.”

— Betty White

“Being blessed with good health gives you the strength and loving what you do and - is a privilege that keeps you going. So I'm just happy as a lark.”

— Betty White

People forget the good that zoos do. If it weren't for zoos, we would have so many species that would be extinct today.

— Betty White

“Oh, I don't need sleep. I just went to my hotel room and had a cold hot dog and a vodka on the rocks.”

— Betty White

“Retirement is not in my vocabulary.”

— Betty White

“My blessing is I'm blessed with good health. If I weren't feeling good or if I didn't have the energy, then it's not that much fun. But this way, you can get away with murder because you're going to be 90 in January.”

— Betty White

“Those that just talk are also the ones that say, 'Why don't they do this?' and 'Why don't they do that?' Well, they're they. We're all they, and we can all do a little something.”

— Betty White

“I didn't know I was a gay icon. I get a lot of mail - but I don't get many bad letters - but I got a woman the other day that was so upset with me because they said, 'How do you feel about the gay marriage thing?' and my answer to that is, 'I really don't care with whom you sleep, I just care what kind of a decent human being you are.' I figure all the rest of it is your business and not mine. And not hers, incidentally.”

— Betty White

“When I started in television, it was brand new. It was the miracle over in the corner of your room. Now the audience has seen every story line. People have heard every joke. They can predict the plot almost before a show starts. That's a hard, sophisticated audience to reach.”

— Betty White

“I won't do anything that is connected with drugs. I've seen drugs ruin so many people's lives. I don't think there's anything cute about drugs. And I don't believe in celebrating them.”

— Betty White

“I really have to thank Facebook ... I didn't know what Facebook was, and now that I do know what it is, I have to say, it sounds like a huge waste of time. I would never say the people on it are losers, but that's only because I'm polite. People say 'But Betty, Facebook is a great way to connect with old friends.' Well at my age, if I wanna connect with old friends, I need a Ouija Board. Needless to say, we didn't have Facebook when I was growing up. We had phonebook, but you wouldn't waste an afternoon with it.”

— Betty White