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I acknowledge all the people who touched my life and made it better, and for those who didn't, you're not in the book!
Humor is imperative, more important than food. You have a choice when someone dies. You can lie down or get back into life. Do something for someone else.
Everything in life comes to an end. I've known loss. I've lost my husband, I've lost friends. When my husband died, I was devastated.
Love them for who they are, and what they are they are; they are not you. Good stuff, isn't it? You have to live 73 years to get that.
When I was in kindergarten, I had one line in a little play. I said, I am Patrick Potato and this is my cousin, Mrs. Tomato, and I heard laughter. I wanted to be an actress from that moment on.
You have an opportunity when a person dies who is so close to you to lie down and die with them or start another life. It is new. It is different. It won't be the same.
There is an enormous market for people over the age of 40. We have the bread! Pay attention!
Now we're on Raymond's seventh year. I'm an actress, so I need to do all those things.
The greatest award given to me was by the firemen and policemen at Ground Zero. They said, We've been here looking for our friends, and we'd go home at night, turn on the television and you were there, making us laugh.
They'll give me the opportunity to do a serious role. I did Touched By An Angel, but nobody watched it. It was a very dramatic role: it was a woman who was dying.
When I go, if there's a tombstone it will say, She doesn't give in. She doesn't give up. And she never takes no for an answer.
If someone is mean, harmful, or evil, they're out of my life. I cross them out.
We get one family, and we spend so much time arguing over stupid things. Resentments, anger, revenge, all those things fill our body with poison. All it takes is to understand somebody else's point of view.
Neil Simon started my career with Last of the Red Hot Lovers on Broadway, with Jimmy Coco.
I got married when I was 18.
Younger people are getting Alzheimer's... when you think about Rita Hayworth getting it at such a young age... I hope this film, A Time To Remember, educates people.
I used to sit near Marilyn Monroe in the Actor's Studio. She'd get dressed up because that was her identity. Sad. Those cameras wouldn't leave her alone. She didn't know where to hide.
The minute you're born, you're getting older.
Life, laughter, and lasagna. That's the way to look at it. It's a funny book, but it has some wisdom to it, things that I've learned in my life.
I think women are taught to ask permission about everything. We don't realize that we are entitled and we do have a say in our lives.
You can't show me an ad on TV with hard bodies and say I have to buy that car. You have to tell me why that car is better and safer than another car.
If you can laugh at me in that character, you can laugh at your own mother or mother-in-law, and you need to do that sometime in life.
The kids don't have the money; we do! I'm very passionate about it: Nowhere do you see older people in a good image.
There must be a time to mourn. I think six months is enough, but at least six months. Then you put the coffee cup down and get off your bum and get out and back into life.
I lost my husband, my dear, great friend Jimmy Coco, and about four others all in a period of about three years. It sent me into analysis, which was helpful, but I survived.
My God, it's a plague. Nobody really says that. They just say, That's AIDS, with such an attitude of resignation.
By the time you're 40, the kids are grown, out of the house or on their way out, and you have your whole life again.
There is a scene where I talk to Patricia Heaton, who plays Debra, about what it is like for a mother to see a boy at age 13 start to walk away from her.
My awards are lovely. I love to show them of.
There were things I had with my daughter-in-law in the beginning that were ridiculous. I was judgmental. Who the hell am I to be judgmental? It's not my house; it's her house.
Have purpose; get involved. Help someone else. I am more active than anybody else in my Raymond cast. I love to learn something new every day.
I think my mother did the best she could. She was a working mother, and there was no husband around. I did better than she did, and my son does better than I do.
I'm learning something all the time. That's the way I want it to go, and that's the way I'll go until I am no longer on this planet.
It was sometimes painful, sometimes deliciously humorous. I lived a full life, and I'm still living a full life.
Life hits you. It's tough. But you heal yourself.
I was raised in the Bronx, then moved to Manhattan with an aunt. Then I lived with my mother, finally. But Broadway was my home for 21 years before I came out to California.
I would ask important people for money, and they'd give me the money but they'd say, Don't put my name on it. It only got acceptable after Rock Hudson died and Elizabeth Taylor got involved. I was doing it when it wasn't fashionable.
You can change my mind, but you gotta work harder at it.
You know I'm an actress, not just a funny lady.
I believe in celebrating people, even though not everybody deserves to be. But those who do, I want to celebrate them.
I performed on Broadway for 22 years before I came to Hollywood. Lily Tomlin asked me to be on her special.
Madison Avenue really has to wake up and realize that we control a lot of money. We're the ones who buy all the appliances for our children.
We're the ones who vote. And we're also in charge of 77% of the money in this country.
I don't consider myself old at all. In fact, that's the word I want deleted from our vocabulary.
If we're vital people... I'm 71 years old, and I couldn't be more vital, I don't think. My brain is functioning full-time, my body is good.
I say, the image-makers have taken away our light, and I urge you, bring it back!
It's just extraordinary what has happened to me in just this last year alone. I even have a new beau!
In the black and Hispanic community it's tough to get these macho guys to even wear condoms. They feel they are immune to HIV and AIDS.
They have proven that older people who have a good image about themselves live seven and a half years longer.
I keep learning. The important thing about getting older is not to settle. The minute you settle, it's like a disease: if you give into it, become a victim, then you're dished.
Knock me down, I'll go right into the ground, but I keep coming back up. And when I break through that ground I'm singing and dancing.
My son is very happy that I'm getting rid of all that with Raymond and not him, and I'm sure my daughter-in-law is even happier that I don't treat her the way I treat Debra on the show.
A senator in Washington the other day said, We need you. We need that voice. Well, between working on Everybody Loves Raymond and writing a book, I have very little time.
In Puppies Behind Bars, when the puppy is eight weeks old it is given to an inmate. The inmate is responsible for the dog.
You can call me an older woman-I don't mind that at all-just don't call me an old one, because I'm not.
We assume change requires the strength of pushing a boat uphill and across the road. It's nothing like that; Toss the garbage with that tiny change of attitude.
Tell me why that toothpaste is better than the one I've been using. Tell me why that soap is better. Tell me why. They're foolish; this is an enormous market!
I didn't begin to really live fully until I was 40.
Unfortunately, I've lost over forty friends. It's outrageous.
I raised a son and had the house and all that to worry about. But I didn't really begin to become a complete adult until I had the freedom to accept who I am and keep growing.
We're not boycotting, we're helping. We're showing our power, our money, and that's what they understand. When it gets to their pocketbooks, they'll pay attention.
Older people have wisdom. If I wake up in the morning and have a new pain, I'm delighted I can feel it. Some of my friends have given up and have settled. That's the worst thing you can do unless you want to die.
Everybody's a teacher if you listen.
In those first years you're taking care of the kids and the house. It's hard to do it all when you don't have the luxury of having someone to help you; you're doing it all.
Get a group of very well-known people together and let them view movies that are coming out.
Suggest to AARP members to go see a movie on opening night or opening day. We will make a blockbuster out of that movie!
She is going from one compound to another. She's got a TV deal, she's lost 20 pounds. I'm going to jail... I'm out of a job, I'm looking for a job.
I beg to do a serious role. I won an Emmy playing a bag lady on St. Elsewhere. But because I'm in a comedy now, most people think of me as comedic.
I miss them terribly, the ones I lost. But I am so grateful to have had them because they really touched and changed my life.
In the last 100 years, the average age of a Nobel Prize winner is 65 years old. Why should they deny us the ability to flourish and accomplish things because we're older people?
If you let go of all the garbage, what's left is love and intelligence and caring and a warm happy glow in your body, your soul and your mind. An enjoyment of what you have.
There's no magazine you open, unless its AARP, that shows a woman over the age of 45 in any other light, other than having to buy Depends or Viagra.
I'm a combination of Ray Romano's mother, an Italian woman, and a German Jew.
With my talent, I can make people laugh and give them another attitude about life. What a blessing that is for me.
Get as much sleep as you can-and have a lot of humour.
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