Bette Midler Quotes

You can't just sing the song and live another life, you know. It's really difficult now because that's not what it's about. It's pop and pop just says that we could be actors. We could sing about stuff and not believe in it. It could be absolutely fraudulent and it doesn't really matter.

There is no way you can get people to believe you on screen if they know who you really are through television.

My business is creating fame and celebrity, and I'm one of the best in the world. I know it to the finest detail. I reflect what's out there, and if there's a demand for something, I recognise it. I don't think I'm crass. I stand by everything I do.

I don't stage my own publicity.

I never 'went Hollywood.' Perhaps some of my behavior was detrimental to my career, but I couldn't go the route of Hollywood parties.

Image has become everything.

I've seen people 'turn up' for the camera, thinking that this is the best way to maximize their platform and get more camera time. This formula works, but it's shortsighted.

Throughout my football career, I've always been somebody who's been very aware, and I know when the camera is on me, and I know how to be polished. I can see how that might come off as disingenuous.

I'm reminded of an interview Larry King had on his talk show with one of Michael Jackson's sisters. He's talking about how many millions she made on her latest record, and all of a sudden, she looks at him tearfully and says, "Larry, you know, I'm not interested in money or sales or songs. I'm a spiritual person." And I thought, "Oh my god..."

An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance

My photographs don't go below the surface. They don't go below anything. They're readings of the surface. I have great faith in surfaces. A good one is full of clues. But whenever I become absorbed in the beauty of a face, in the excellence of a single feature, I feel I've lost what's really there been seduced by someone else's standard of beauty or by the sitter's own idea of the best in him. That's not usually the best. So each sitting becomes a contest.

A sellout is putting your name on any piece of crap and then expecting people to buy it because it's got your name on it. That's what a sellout is to me.

If you hate something, you hate it, and if you like something or somebody, you like it, but tell the truth. And most celebrities have that thin veneer that they will not break for you.

Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.

I’m going out to let my real talent show, not to just stand there and dance around. Personally, I’d never lip-synch. It’s just not me.

He did seem like a nice boy. Seeming and being are two different things.

The truth is the one thing that nobody will believe.

I made my song a coat Covered with embroideries Out of old mythologies From heel to throat But the fools caught it, Wore it in the world's eyes As though they'd wrought it. Song, let them take it, For there's more enterprise In walking naked.

There is no one who likes a challenge more than Tom Cruise. Believe me, there was never any discussion of lip syncing or another voice or anything like that, because if the guy's going to hang out on the top of the Burj, he's not going to let anybody do his singing for him.

Most portraits are lies. People are rarely what they appear to be, especially in front of a camera. You might know me your entire lifetime and never reveal yourself to me. To interpret wrinkles as character is insult not insight.

Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and comercials.

Show is not substance; realities govern wise men.

Being singer is different than being an actor, where you call up sources from your own experience that you can apply to whatever Shakespeare drama you're in. But an actor is pretending to be somebody, a singer isn't. And that's the difference. Singers today have to sing songs where there's very little emotion involved. That and the fact that they have to sing hit records from years gone by doesn't leave a lot of room for any kind of intelligent creativity.

But we're lost in a world of appearances now.

A flair for publicity does not necessarily mean a flair for acting.