Top 250 Show Business Quotes

Oddly enough, Dame Edna is not interested in show business. Her friends in Los Angeles are mostly in the world of petroleum. She used to have some acting friends. Sadly, Joan Rivers has passed on. Larry Hagman was a close friend. A number of others.

You simply have to love show business to make the risk worthwhile.

There came a time when I had to decide between show business and devoting my full time to medical training. I chose show business.

I was never really brought into the show business side of my father’s life. I guess that’s been a blessing and a downfall. But it’s made my own work the initiation.

Going to New York to do whatever – show business – it just seemed fun. It seemed fun to go to the big city and meet all kinds of different people and maybe be famous. It was just exciting. So I wasn’t scared.

I secretly nurtured the idea of being in show business but was always terrified of it. I had every fear you could possibly imagine associated with performing.

The big thing I learned from Chris Rock was not to be a victim of show business. Don’t let show business push you around.

I was always in show business but in many ways was not really of show business. I didn’t move in show business circles, particularly, still don’t do it.

My parents weren’t involved in show business, but my parents would show me. We’d watch old films in the house. Little film festivals of Westerns and stuff like that when I was a kid. I knew I wanted to be those guys in those movies before I knew what being an actor was.

I was a theatrical kid, but my parents were overprotective. When I expressed interest in show business, they shut it down.

If you’re going to be honest with yourself, you have to admit that you go into show business wanting people to talk about you and wanting everyone to know who you are. But that also means there are going to be a whole bunch of people who don’t like you. No matter who you are.

Government is not show business.

Politics isn’t a reality show or a gong show. It’s not show business for ugly people. It’s the arena where we define our common life in a rough and ready contest that has winners and losers.

When I was in college, I was debating to try my hand at show business, or to become a professor. I just thought of the risk of not going into show business and always wondering if I would’ve had a chance. Because that’s where my real heart was.

Show business is one of the few businesses that the devil will actually agree to own just a portion of your soul because he knows if you have a performer’s ego you were probably working for him all along.

I cannot stand the people who get wonderful starts in show business and who abuse it. Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen, for example, although there are plenty of others, too. They are the most blessed people in the world, and they don’t appreciate it.

Show business is in my blood.

Definitely for me, my personality, having children was a definite sea change. I found it very, very hard to balance show business and being a dad. The narcissism of show business and the complete, total focus of it was very difficult.

I don’t mind having a one-hit wonder as long as I have a career in show business, which has been fabulous.

Show business is – you’re there by somebody’s fluke. And as long as somebody likes you, and the show is going well, you’re fine. I’d do anything. There’s so much I want to do.

I feel I need to have people outside of show business who keep me grounded and define who I am.

I didn’t get here for my acting… but I love show business.

I never grew up with heroes in show business. My hero was my father.

Like all soul singers, I grew up singing in church but sometimes I would leave early and sit in the car listening to gospel band, The Blind Boys of Alabama. Hearing their lead singer Clarence made me connect the idea of church and show business and see how I could make a career singing music that stirred the soul.

It’s show business. No show, no business.

My show business career doesn’t mean I can’t write a symphony. It just means I was never asked to write one.

I did say to myself one day, ‘I’d love to be a Jewish comedian,’ but that’s my only memory with any connection to show business.

I learned a long time ago, if you want to keep your friends in show business, don’t get famous. Because as soon as you get famous, a lot of the people you used to know, who didn’t, become incredibly bitter and jealous. It’s part of the territory.

I didn’t have the drive; I never wanted to be in show business. I went into my father’s business because of osmosis.

I do see things that are funny on the net. I Googled myself the other day and found out that I was worth $250m, and that I was the highest-paid guy in show business! I wish so hard it was true. It is, of course, the complete opposite. I’m neither rich nor do I make a lot of money.

I just needed a job. Before being hired as an usher at the CBS Theatre, I didn’t even know there was a show business!

Show business is made up of disappointments, and it’s through life’s disappointments that you grow.

I have received more fulfillment and adulation than I would ever know what to do with in terms of show business.

There’s a degree of narcissism involved in anything in show business. I mean, you can’t do it without a healthy ego. Why would you want anybody to listen to you?

I want to stay in show business; if show business will have me. Still I’d like people to know that I can do something without wearing bib overalls.

I have a funny family, but none of them are remotely in show business.

I’d love to do situation comedy – it’s the best job in show business.

It’s important in show business to have friends who understand the cut and thrust of everyday working life and the constant rejection.

Show business people aren’t vapid.

I think it’s one of the main negative emotional ingredients that fuels show business, because there’s so much at stake and the fear of failure looms large.

I was studying pre-med at UCLA when I decided show business was for me, and the best way to make it was in music. I had just one problem. I was tone deaf.

Show business is like a bumpy bus ride. Sometimes you find yourself temporarily juggled out of your seat and holding onto a strap. But the main idea is to hang in there and not be shoved out the door.

Just because someone signed up for something or takes advice or has managers or works in entertainment or show business with other people doesn’t mean they don’t have a brain, okay? It doesn’t mean that they’re not a real person.

You and I and everybody in show business and the entertainment industry fly by the seat of our pants. We don’t know quite what is going to happen.

One of the reasons I like to teach is that I like to pass things on. That’s an unspoken law of show business.

I think ‘Y&R’s future is contingent upon the ratings. Obviously, none of the soaps are kept alive for the sake of loyalty. It’s all about ratings. It’s show business. Period.

Is it hard to make a living in show business? Yeah.

I started dancing when I saw Fred Astaire in ‘Flying Down to Rio,’ at approximately nine years old. Fred Astaire influenced me, more than anything, to be in ‘show business.’

Like everybody in show business, you think you’re going to wake up one day, and it’s all going to be taken away from you. I think we all share an insecurity in that way, everybody in show business – the ones I talk to, anyway.

I don’t mean to sound – I don’t want it to come out funny, but I don’t like show business. I love – I love acting in films. I love it.

I’m in love with everything about show business. The only thing that ever came easy to me in life has been acting.

We had some problems – my children were kidnapped during that time, and it just changed my whole way of thinking, from being in show business and everything else.

Well, we’re in show business, and I have been making a living in this business a long time and inevitably it means taking what it is that you’ve done and hopefully you’re showing it to a lot of people who like it.

I grew up in a show business family, so we’ve always had a great sense of balance, being so close to my parents. I’ve always known what is and isn’t reality.

Noel Fielding is one of the nicest guys in show business. The first time I met him, I felt like I had met a rather wayward cousin whose take on the world made me laugh.

Everyone in show business has had the experience of the fan who is so excited at recognizing their favorite star, they say, ‘Oh my gosh, you’re my biggest fan!’

If I wasn’t in show business I don’t know what I would have been – a wanderer or something, you know? But God blessed me with the talent and the chance. I knocked on enough doors, and this is what I can give myself credit for.

Ask Mother for advice on breaking into show business.

The minute you start the process of deciding to make a film and you’re communicating that vision to anyone, you’re in the process of selling. If you don’t understand that, you’re not in show business. You’re just not.