- [At age 90] I can credit my folks for my genes. That said, I can't get over that at this age I don't feel this age. I'm not trying to be any younger. I'm not lying about my age. If I were lying about my age, I would say I was 89. I'm just at one of those good times in one's life. I'm at one of the high spots. I'm healthy enough to enjoy it. I'm surrounded by friends I adore. Isn't that kind of the best way to sign off?
- I'm in the acting business. That's the ego business. When you get offers, the way things are going now you've gotta enjoy it. You've gotta take to time to taste it, and appreciate it and make the most of it. Those offers aren't going to come around all the time. By the time I'm 100...
- The audience today has heard every joke. They know every plot. They know where you're going before you even start. That's a tough audience to surprise, and a tough audience to write for. It's much more competitive now, because the audience is so much more - I want to say sophisticated.
- [on Bea Arthur] Bea was not that fond of me. I don't know what I ever did but she was not that thrilled with me. But I loved Bea and I admired her.
- It's your outlook on life that counts. If you take yourself lightly and don't take yourself too seriously, pretty soon you can find the humor in our everyday lives. And sometimes it can be a lifesaver.
- Don't try to be young. Just open your mind. Stay interested in stuff. There are so many things I won't live long enough to find out about, but I'm still curious about them. You know people who are already saying, 'I'm going to be 30 - oh, what am I going to do?' Well, use that decade! Use them all!
- I think a lot of people like hidden-camera shows where they think they're spying on somebody who doesn't know they're looking at them. And nobody takes it seriously - you either enjoy it and get a laugh out of the reactions or not.
- I think older women still have a full life.
- I'm not into animal rights. I'm only into animal welfare and health. I've been with the Morris Animal Foundation since the '70s. We're a health organization. We fund campaign health studies for dogs, cats, lizards and wildlife. I've worked with the L.A. Zoo for about the same length of time. I get my animal fixes!
- I've worked with the Los Angeles Zoo for 45 years, and we have this magnificent photographer, Tad Motoyama. He takes these wonderful, wonderful animal pictures. All through the years he's given me copies of these pictures. Well, I have all these gorgeous ones, so I said, 'Tad, I want to do a book with your picture on one side.'
- Animal lover that I am, a cougar I am not.
- I am interested in a lot of things - not just show business and my passion for animals. I try to keep current in what's going on in the world. I do mental exercises. I don't have any trouble memorizing lines because of the crossword puzzles I do every day to keep my mind a little limber. I don't sit and vegetate.
- I didn't know what Facebook was, and now that I do know what it is, I have to say, it sounds like a huge waste of time.
- Anger tears me up inside... My own... or anyone else's.
- You can always tell about somebody by the way they put their hands on an animal.
- Why retire from something if you're loving it so much and enjoying it so much, and you're blessed with another group of people to work with like the gang on 'Hot in Cleveland?' Why would I think of retiring? What would I do with myself?
- If you're walking with your lady on the sidewalk, I still like to see a man walking street-side, to protect the lady from traffic. I grew up with that, and I hate to see something like that get lost. I still like to see that a man opens the door. I like those touches of chivalry that are fast disappearing.
- Animals don't lie. Animals don't criticize. If animals have moody days, they handle them better than humans do.
- The bottom line is, I'm blessed with good health. On top of that, I don't go around thinking 'Oh, I'm 90, I better do this or I better do that.' I'm just Betty. I'm the same Betty that I've always been. Take it or leave it.
- I don't know where I learned elephants like their tongues slapped. Whatever turns you on.
- I may be a senior, but so what? I'm still hot.
- During the Depression, my dad made radios to sell to make extra money. Nobody had any money to buy the radios, so he would trade them for dogs. He built kennels in the backyard, and he cared for the dogs.
- I had to make a major decision with myself because I just don't think you can do both: try to have a baby career and raise it and have a baby baby and raise it. And to try to do justice to either one. It was a very conscious decision on my part not to have children - which I have never regretted.
- I love words. Sudoku I don't get into, I'm not into numbers that much, and there are people who are hooked on that. But crossword puzzles, I just can't - if I get a puppy and I paper train him and I put the - if all of a sudden I'd open the paper and there's a crossword puzzle - 'No, no, you can't go on that, honey. I'll take it.'
- I'm a big cockeyed optimist. I try to accentuate the positive as opposed to the negative.
- I always wanted to be a zookeeper when I was growing up, and I've wound up a zookeeper! I've been working with the Los Angeles Zoo for 45 years! I'm the luckiest old broad on two feet because my life is divided absolutely in half - half animals and half show business. You can't ask for better than two things you love the most.
- I just make it my business to get along with people so I can have fun. It's that simple.
- When I pontificate, it sounds so, you know, Oh, well, she's preaching. I'm not preaching, but I think maybe I learned it from my animal friends. Kindness and consideration of somebody besides yourself. I think that keeps you feeling young. I really do.
- Animals are near and dear to my heart, and I've devoted my life to trying to improve their lives.
- Doing drama is, in a sense, easier. In doing comedy, if you don't get that laugh, there's something wrong.
- Hot dogs and Red Vines and potato chips and French fries are my favorite foods.
- Wilderness is harder and harder to find these days on this beautiful planet, and we're abusing our planet to the point of almost no return.
- I don't care who anybody sleeps with. If a couple has been together all that time - and there are gay relationships that are more solid than some heterosexual ones - I think it's fine if they want to get married. I don't know how people can get so anti-something.
- Long ago, I did a five-and-a-half-hour-a-day, six-day-a-week talk show for four years, early on, in Los Angeles - local show. And when you are on that many hours with no script, you know, you get very comfortable, maybe overly comfortable with that small audience.
- A good friend of mine was Lucy Ball. Her mother and my mother were best friends.
- I have a two-story house and a bad memory, so I'm up and down those stairs all the time. That's my exercise.
- Wendie Malick and Valerie Bertinelli make fun of me, but I take care of my health - I don't abuse it.
- It's a little known fact that one in three family pets gets lost during its lifetime, and approximately 9 million pets enter shelters each year. That's why it's a wonderful thing to get your pet microchipped and registered with your contact information because then they can be located and the owners can track where their pets are.
- Retirement is not in my vocabulary. They aren't going to get rid of me that way.
- If you have one good series, you know, it's a blessing. Two good series is unusual. Three is a phenomenon, but right now, I'm working with these wonderful women on Hot in Cleveland (2010) and Valerie Bertinelli, and Wendie Malick and Jane Leeves are like, it's like the buddy-ship we had on Những Cô Gái Vàng (1985) and Mary Tyler Moore.
- I don't seem to require a lot of sleep. I just - if I get four, five good hours, I'm fine. But sleeping is sort of dull. There's a lot of other good stuff that you can do without just lying down and closing your eyes.
- A lady likes to be complimented on her looks, her eyes, her figure. But the personality comments are much appreciated.
- I enjoy being busy, I really do. Remember, I'm the stub end of the railroad. I have no family, so I'm not taking busy time away from people that I should be spending it with. So I'm just relaxing and enjoying it.
- If everyone took personal responsibility for their animals, we wouldn't have a lot of the animal problems that we do. I'm a big spay-and-neuter supporter. Don't have babies if you're not going to take care of those babies. We don't need more. We just need to take care of the ones we have. Take responsibility and breed kindness.
- I think it's your mental attitude. So many of us start dreading age in high school and that's a waste of a lovely life. 'Oh... I'm 30, oh, I'm 40, oh, 50.' Make the most of it.
- I go out to the kitchen to feed the dog, but that's about as much cooking as I do.
- I've enjoyed the opposite sex a lot. Always have. Always will.
- My mother and dad were big animal lovers, too. I just don't know how I would have lived without animals around me. I'm fascinated by them - both domestic pets and the wild community. They just are the most interesting things in the world to me, and it's made such a difference in my lifetime.
- I really don't care with whom you sleep. I just care what kind of a decent human being you are.
- The writers are the stars of every really successful sitcom.
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