Top 55 Valerie Harper Quotes

Rhoda Morgenstern gave a wonderful impetus and propulsion to my career.

I had always wanted a steady job in this business, a show that lasted.

I really look at my life as blessed.

We think it’s food that matters the most, but exercise and food both matter.

I wouldn’t give people advice except to share with them what I’m doing, which is, You’re alive – stay alive.

Live fully in the instant.

I’m painfully middle class.

What we really wanted to call it was ‘I Rhoda Book.’

I’m happier because I had to face what all of us try not to face: that we’re going to die. It’s a fact.

We all have a way to contribute, to your community, to your family, whatever it is you can do.

I have had acupuncture regularly, and I engage in visualization, which is actually an actor’s tool, visualizing myself kicking out the cancer, making up scenarios.

The first Broadway play I ever saw was ‘The Bad Seed’ by Maxwell Anderson and with Patty McCormack. ‘The Bad Seed’ was from an extraordinary novel by William March.

All of us have the same thing coming – death. It’s waiting. But I don’t want to go. I want to live to be 102!

I’ve had very deep moments of sadness. What I do is really sob, really cry, do whatever it is, and then kind of release it. Then I can go cook dinner or make a phone call to a friend.

Stop working so hard at being interesting and focus on what’s outside yourself. There are universes out there that need to be explored. And, an interested person is extremely interesting.

I first met Rhoda Morgenstern in the spring of 1970.

I used to get some ego thing out of saying I wasn’t a star, just an actress. Forget it. I’m a star. I wanted it. I worked for it. I got it.

Magazines airbrush everything. If you think it’s an illusion, then it probably is.

That’s very unusual for an actor, to have gainful employment that they are secure in, that they know is going to be there year after year.

At an ERA fundraiser years ago, one of my favorite buttons was the one that said, ‘Every mother is a working mother.’

The body is just a rooming house.

I’m trying to live every moment as much as I can.

I’m a perfect person to tell people not to give up.

We’re all terminal; none of us are getting out of this alive.

Knowing that you have something you have to deal with, rising to the occasion, builds character.

I am pretty heavy into causes. I’m an active Democrat, I boycott grapes, and I work for prison reform.

I’ve always felt very strongly about human rights for blacks, women, and gays. Our Constitution is about equality for all – that’s got to mean something to all of us.

Talk about a woman of a certain age – Pearl Buck was a great prototype of continuing to work. She was in the hospital dying of cancer, and in the next room was her secretary, typing out her next book.

It’s really important that we don’t hang up the membership to the human community at menopause.

I know there are a whole bunch of ‘Rhoda’ rooters out there.

I don’t see anything degrading about marriage or homemaking, but my husband and I pool the money we earn, along with the jobs around the house.

I felt sharing my experience may be of value or assistance in some way to others.

My husband is the best caregiver in the world.

I don’t wake up saying, ‘Oh, I’m going to die.’ It’s a waste of time. It really is.

Do not tell somebody how to vote, just go up to them and tell them what Fahrenheit 9/11 meant to you. Fahrenheit will probably not win an Academy Award, but if you put it first on your list, it will become a nominee.

The movie that really ‘did it for me’ was ‘All About Eve.’ The backstage feeling, the authenticity, the passion those people had for their lives in the theater. I must say, the movie ‘All About Eve,’ what a great movie! ‘All About Eve’ had a profound effect on my life.

Anything I can give women to help them feel better about themselves, that’s what I want to do.

I’m talking about enjoying and finding pleasure and interest and happiness and curiosity every moment.

I never did stand-up. If I’ve been funny ever, it was with other actors.

Women and young girls are constantly judging themselves by standards that aren’t real.

I have cancer. It’s in my brain… What are you gonna do about it?

When I heard ‘incurable’… incurable is a tough word.

As physics has proven, we’re ultimately particulate matter, which means we are all one. That’s why racial and gender bias is so ridiculous.

I am a cancer patient, and I continue to fight with the hope that a cure may be just around the corner. I am grateful to my family, friends, loved ones, and to fans that I am in their thoughts and prayers. That support gives me great hope.

Don’t live in fear of dying.

With imagery, as actors know, you can make up anything you want to. You can put yourself in icy water to get rid of this or that.

I never smoked in my life. Neither did my mother. And so many women I meet whose mothers or aunts or whoever who have gotten lung cancer were no-time smokers.

I really want Americans, and all of us, to be less afraid of death, and know that it’s a passage, but that – don’t go to the funeral before the day of the funeral.

‘Incurable’ is a tough word. So is ‘terminal.’

I have an intention to live each moment fully.

As long as you’re alive, you can do something.

Every five minutes, every hour, every day, every year that you waste worrying about your cancer – you have forfeited time that you could have been alive having fun.

I think drama and comedy are pretty much all the same, and the issue is whether or not you have a sense of humor.

Luck is not an acceptable substitute for early detection.

Pearl Buck was my mother’s favorite author.