Betty White Quotes

You may have done 20 great shows in a row and come to one, and it doesn't work. You never presume anything.

I've learned that you can never predict what will happen to a film. You can never predict if people will love it, if they'll hate it. It's an act of ego if you're hoping for everyone to love the film and tell you how great you are.

I think filmmaking is a gamble anyway, right? You never know the results from the start.

There is something a bit volatile about hosting a big live show like 'Eurovision.' Anything could literally happen.

To make great movies, there is an element of risk. You have to say, 'Well, I am going to make this film, and it is not really a sure thing.'

History is full of times when the inevitable front-runner is inevitable right up until he or she is no longer inevitable.

This life of ours, this is a wonderful life. If you can get through life like this and get away with it, hey that's great. But it's very predictable. There's so many ways you can screw it up.

The many many imponderables come together when a film opens and for all sorts of reasons it may or may not succeed.

I know the nature of comedy, and you never know what will happen with the next movie or whether people will find it funny.

Each new film is like a trial. Before I step in front of the camera, I do not know whether I am going to fall or whether I am going to fly - and that is exactly the way I want it to stay.

Screen is satisfying because it's so technical and mysterious. It's like playing roulette: you get a script, you think it's either great or naff, but you have no idea how it will really turn out. On stage, you are your own editor - and you get brief moments of grace, where suddenly you feel free.

I guess the big thing to say about 'Pig Farm' is that none of us knows if it works, and we're going in blind. It's in the tradition of 'Urinetown,' kind of - but that's a pretty small tradition. It's possible that it can fail.

Making movies is just like betting on horses at the racetrack.

It's scary to sign a six-year contract for something that you don't necessarily know about. And yet I did that most every year. I've done a lot of failed pilots.

I have to expose myself and then accept the judgment that audiences and critics will have. And that's okay. I appreciate the elliptical nature of it. Sometimes people are more in the mood to be nice to me than others, and that's great.

You can't predict a show, that is the damndest thing, you can't predict if a show is going to work or not until it's on the air.

One thing you learn doing magic tricks for a living is how close every performance of every magic trick is to disaster. There are no robust magic tricks. They're all hanging from a thread - sometimes literally.

I'm going to try to do music for the rest of my life, but that's just trying. Maybe it's not going to work out. Who knows?

Success is an absurd, erratic thing. She arrives when one least expects her and after she has come may depart again almost because of a whim.

Acting is the most fun. I like to do it and it's great that I can still do that, but you know, you don't really have a lot of control over things, so it's real hit or miss.

No one can guarantee success of a film.

If I'm not nervous, I'm nervous. You never know how people are going to receive the work.

There is no guaranteed formula. And that's one of the interesting things about filmmaking. You could put $115 million in, and it doesn't guarantee success.

It's a weird thing about our business: You give everything you have, and there are moments where you go back and forth in your mind about if what you're doing is brilliant or a total disaster.

The industry is such - there is no guarantee that a show would work only because it is airing.