Elaine Stritch Quotes

I feel like I'm a showbiz professional. This is my job, it's going to have ups and downs. I'm lucky to be able to do this for a living, but I also do feel like I don't anticipate changing the world. All I can really do is do a good job when I'm hired to do a job, and be happy at home.

I work to live, not live to work, so my head's at home, not in some showbiz life.

There's no job in show business that's harder than any other job outside show business.

Show business has been really, really good to me because I can work and take a lot of time off, and I'm extremely undisciplined person.

There were points I wanted to stop acting. We got so busy and didn't get to see our friends a lot, and I was like, 'Wow, I'm kind of over this.' But then we started really having fun on 'The Suite Life.'

Show business can be an addiction. ... An audience would laugh at me one night, and I would chase that high for another three months.

A career like mine as an actor has a lot of ups and downs. Sometimes you wonder if you're not wasting your time trying to carve out a space for yourself in this crazy entertainment industry.

When you talk about the world's greatest entertainer you have to say Al Jolson because there was no one like him. Only Judy Garland and perhaps Frank Sinatra got anywhere near him!

I could always write songs, act, get into politics, or stay home with the kids. But I've got to have some fun.

I had been asked to open a nightclub in Atlantic City. They offered me a ridiculous amount of money. They literally overpaid me. So I did one show a night. Then they asked me back by popular demand. So I went back. Then I said, "To hell with this." I was only doing it for the money, and I was doing easy routines. It's just too much work to get up every day and practice.

I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of WORK, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in the organised diminution of work.

There's no limit to what you can accomplish in the world of entertainment. It's all I've ever known since I was 19.

So he was opening night... I was out of a job, and I'd been to every producer in Hollywood trying to get a job singing. But nobody wanted to know me.

I feel blessed that I get to be part of entertaining people in any capacity.

I was born and raised to entertain other people. I've heard laughter and applause and known a lot of sorrow. Everything about me is based on show business - I think it will bring me happiness. I hope so.

I'm the luckiest man in the world - performing 500 shows a year and loving what I do - illusion IS my day to day life.

Whether I'm in front of the camera, behind the camera, at my computer writing a novel or a screenplay, as long as I get to entertain someone out there, I'm happy.

There is no greater thing you can do with your life and your work than follow your passions – in a way that serves the world and you.

The circus comes as close to being the world in microcosm as anything I know; in a way, it puts all the rest of show business in the shade.

Actor is an odd profession, and sometimes people get jealous, but I haven't really experienced any of that. Everyone's been really happy for me, which is really, really great.

I've done four movies. I've done seven albums. So I feel like music has always been a part of my life; acting is something I'm learning.

Some people work to have a weekend and so on the weekend they genuinely don't think about anything apart from the fact that they're on their weekend. Some people are like that so maybe some people would be like, "Yeah that'd be great. Take away my anxiety and give me a nice lounge chair." But I would be so not interested in that.

A lot of kids think they can just go to Hollywood and become an actor or actress. It's not that easy. There are millions of kids who come out here wanting to act. So, you have to have a plan, and you have to stick with that plan, because it's not going to be easy by any means.

I do six shows a week. Sometimes my voice gets tired, but I love it.

Did I think I'd ever be in television shows that people would see or movies? No. But I knew that I was going to be an actor.