Bette midler

I had a hard-scrabble childhood with my parents. I have a lot of baggage. To come down to the footlights and accept the audience's affection inside a Broadway theater - that didn't come easily to me.

As an actor, you're supposed to take jobs that will challenge you or force fans to see you in a different light. By the '90s, I wasn't really an actor anymore. I was someone who went on the road with...

I learned to accept the audience's happiness for me, which is one of the hardest things for me to learn.

I never know how much of what I say is true.

I'd make a wonderful Lady Macbeth. I'll wear a pair of platform shoes or something.

I already have a Tony for my Broadway concert in '73. It's one of the most precious things I've won.

My husband calls it winging it - the way I just took what the studios gave me, didn't do my homework and avoided roles that would risk my image.

When I moved to New York City in 1965, I wanted to be in theater. I was following my Ethel Barrymore dream. But I was too young to be Ethel.

My idea of superwoman is someone who scrubs her own floors.

I bear no grudges. I have a mind that retains nothing.