- I try not to drink too much, because when I'm drunk, I bite.
- [on acting] You have to think you're the greatest thing since sliced bread, but know you're not.
- [during a concert in Brisbane, Australia 2005] It's been 26 years since I was last here. Before my fans were all taking drugs; this time they're all taking medication!
- The worst part of success is to try finding someone who is happy for you.
- I always try to balance the light with the heavy - a few tears of human spirit in with the sequins and the fringes.
- I bear no grudges. I have a mind that retains nothing.
- Get the trash off the street and back on the stage where it belongs.
- In Hawaii I was the chief chunker in a pineapple canning factory. I used to come home smelling like a compote.
- Underneath all this drag I'm really a librarian, you know.
- I wouldn't say I invented tack, but I definitely brought it to its present high popularity.
- [Asked by Parade Magazine whether she will retire after her show in Las Vegas] I think so. I must say, my high kick is just as high as it ever was, thanks to tai chi. But everything is a bit slower. The mind - things don't stick the way they used to. I feel like I'm going out with a bang. It's something my husband and I have talked about. I certainly don't want to die in harness. I'm not one of those people.
- I want world peace. Please. Just for my sake, before I go. I also hope that Meryl Streep has the good taste to step aside and let the rest of us have a crack ... but I know she won't. She has a really good agent. She's great, but I know there are some ladies behind her saying, 'Meryl, for God's sake, do you have to say yes to everything?'
- I'm kind of healthy but has a little bit of arthritis, my eyes are a little shaky. I drank a little, I didn't do drugs to any great extent. I do get depressed but not like you do if you drink or do drugs. I have pretty bad melancholia, but I've found you can get rid of that by exercising. [I have therapy.] A lot of people don't love what they do and I do. I still love music and I love, love, love to dance. For most women - I can't speak for men - I'd say dancing is the key to happiness.
- I love Barbara Hersheyand Lainie Kazan. I had no idea Beaches (1988) was an 'uberweepie'! The nerve! It wasn't so bad. I co-produced it. It was a pretty damned good screenplay. I thought it was just another movie. I didn't think of it as a women's picture. I was so excited to be able to sing again and have a soundtrack.
- Thank God for the gays. I don't know what would have happened but I know what did happen. Good for them and good for me.
- I was riveting. Yes, it was a place where gay men met and had sex. I didn't see that. Someone sent me a picture showing me in a 1930s costume with my hair pulled back and all these cute young men in bathrobes watching me. It seemed very innocent. I would stand at the top of a little staircase with a towel round my head and act out whacked-out movie heroines. Patti LaBelle played there, too. I wasn't there long, but I was there long enough to make a splash, ha-ha.
- I've never been to a sex orgy in my entire life. Studio 54 was way worse than the baths.
- I'm glad my daughter has been [university educated]. I sometimes think I should go back to school to learn French and music, but who would have me?
- I'm an open-space person. I'm not a believer in sprawl. I don't particularly care for postmodern architecture. I believe in solid fare and building fair. I'm green to the core. This group I run in New York bought 60 community gardens and helped another group to buy 55 in congested neighbourhoods. I'm doing a similar thing in Hawaii, but it's harder there, the tracts are so big and there are these things about road zoning, dams, reservoirs ...
- My parents (mother Ruth a seamstress, father Fred a painter) were not encouraging. My father put everybody down. Yeah, it was a real drag but he had his moments. His saving grace was a wicked sense of humour. He was a good provider. They were a team. They were at Pearl Harbour, they knew hardship. My mum was supportive, she had a tinge of showbiz fever and named me and my sisters after Hollywood icons. My dad was like, 'Get a job'. But that gave me something to fight against.
- [On growing up in Hawaii]: We were very poor, it was a hard-scrabble childhood, not particularly happy. The best part was nature, which is so intense there. The sky is bright blue, the clouds are puffy, the grass is lush, it feels like you can touch the stars. But the people were not very nice. I was a white kid in a mostly Asian neighbourhood. You heard Hawaii was a great melting pot? Hooey. I had a very strong fantasy life. Sorry, what was the question? I'm bonkers. Where am I? Who am I? I love your socks.
- I thought I would be an actorrrr. I thought I'd be Ethel Barrymore. I didn't know who she was, but she was my idea of an actorrrr. It seemed it would be more fun to be someone else rather than myself.
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