Top 70 Teri Garr Quotes

I went to physical therapy, occupational therapy, voice, every kind of therapy except mental therapy – obviously!

I did a string of about six or seven Elvis movies, all in a row. He made all of those movies in two years’ time. All of them bad. Don’t quote me.

You have to find out what’s right for you, so it’s trial and error. You are going to be all right if you accept realistic goals for yourself.

When you’re a kid, you should be a kid.

A chiropractor wishes he were a doctor, just like those people outside Spago wish they were actors.

I had been nominated for an Academy Award for my performance as Sandy Lester, Dustin Hoffman’s neurotic, struggling actress girlfriend, in ‘Tootsie.’ Under Sydney Pollack’s direction, ‘Tootsie’ had been a runaway hit starring Dustin as an unemployed actor who pretends to be a woman in order to land a role in a soap opera.

There are several drugs out right now that can’t stop multiple sclerosis, but they can slow it way down. They also made me puff up like a balloon. So I looked horrible. I hated that.

Everyone I tell that I had an aneurysm always says, ‘Oh, my cousin died from that.’ Well, I didn’t, so I’m amazed. I was in a wheelchair, and I had to go to rehab. And now I’m walking!

Usually, the extras have a different mentality. I had the mentality of an artist, because I was a ‘ballet-rina.’ But most extras are out to make a fast buck for nothing. They’re ‘atmosphere.’

I recently saw the movie about Ray Charles, and there’s a scene where he falls down and the mother doesn’t help him. She says, I don’t want anyone to treat you like a cripple. I’ve fallen down before, and Molly will say, get up and just go.

You have to lift your head up out of the mud and just do it.

Someday, I’ll make the right connection with the house I’m meant to be in.

My mother was a real tough cookie. She raised the three of us, and she worked at the same time.

I take one of the interferon therapies, Rebif.

I remember some stories had a very big impact on me, like ‘The Little Train That Could,’ which is about the importance of not giving up, and ‘Little Toot,’ about a playful tugboat in the New York harbor.

There are things that you can do today that, years ago, there was nothing. The community today needs to know that with MRI and the current medications the view is good.

I talked once with Harrison Ford about Wright’s houses and how impressive they are.

Someday they may cure MS, that idiot thing. It gets in there and they can’t get it out.

I want to write about my experiences since ‘Speedbumps.’

I’ve always been this insane. Isn’t that interesting?

If you get your foot in the door doing one kind of part, that’s the kind of role they call you for. I can’t say I resent it – then I would resent my whole career.

I’m always like this with a new movie role. I always get super-defensive and make noises like a rooster, Maybe that’s because I spent so much time as a chorus girl.

Elvis used to have parties at his house – and I’ve told this story a million times – but they weren’t really parties, because there was no chips or dip. Just Elvis and his boys watching TV, and him making funny comments, and everybody laughing at them. Is that a party? Not really. But that’s Hollywood.

I have worked enough and I am happy to be touring the country speaking about living with MS to give people inspiration and motivation to help themselves.

I want to write more, because I think I’ve got a story to tell.

I get this thing every once in a while that I call ‘ESS:’ emergency sleep situation. I’ll get like lead, really fatigued, and I can’t move.

What’s worse in Hollywood, being handicapped or being a woman over 50?

How come women are treated differently from men all the time? Not only handicapped people, but women – and handicapped women, forget it!

In addition to having a good partnership with a good doctor, you have to do some of the work yourself. Go online, read about it, and find out what you can tolerate.

Directors would tell me, ‘We want you to play a character a little less complex than you are.’ Yeah, sure. What they mean is, ‘You’re playing a dummy.’

I was trying to work, but I noticed that people, if they had any inkling of the idea that I was sick or had MS… people shunned me. No work after that.

My father died when I was 11. He was a vaudeville comedian. He worked in one movie, ‘Ladies of the Chorus,’ as Marilyn Monroe’s father.

I try to laugh as much as possible and enjoy the company of people who can make me laugh.

I plan to live to be 120!

I understand how hard it is to talk to people about MS. You don’t want pity or random advice.

People aren’t so interested in seeing movies about women’s problems.

I’d like to play something classical. I’m in the Strindberg society, and we do readings of Strindberg plays. I’d love to do Nora in ‘A Doll’s House.’ And Chekhov. I have been working back to back on what I call ‘regular jobs,’ so it’s hard to do plays.

I think eventually they’re going to find out that MS is like 10 different things. I have a neurological disease something like MS, and it’s MS, so let’s take medicine for it.

When one woman found out I had multiple sclerosis, she said to me, ‘My heart bleeds for you.’ I said to her, ‘Well, my heart bleeds for you, because you’re an idiot.’

When I was a dancer, I would see that dancers were treated like garbage. I mean like, like extras.

I go to Yosemite a lot. To get there, you fly from L.A. to Fresno and rent a car. So I know about Fresno. It looks like the entire city was built in 1946 in three months – all these low California ranch style homes. The whole city looks like that.

God is in all – I believe in God, yes. And I believe God is in us.

I don’t consider that I have to judge any of the movies I make all the time, but people are always asking me, ‘What’s your favorite movie?’ And I never know what to say.

Going to dancing school, or being in a play, is a very familial feeling. You’re around friends.

My mother was a role model.

MS doesn’t define who I am.

Please, people, don’t drink and vote. We’ll all pay for that.

I refused David Letterman’s proposal of marriage for obvious reasons, but thanks for asking.

I have an enormous fondness for delicious food. It’s very comforting.

I went on the ‘Letterman’ show the first time to plug something, and then I came back as the Fool, the court jester.

The Academy not only knew I existed, they thought I was good!

I started out in the 1970s doing the Wife, the Bimbo, and the Ditz, and if I somehow get a serious role, they all wanna know the same thing: When are you going back to comedy?

If you get somebody laughing – and then stick in a point about something important – they’ll remember it.

What’s happening to me is I’m still happy and functioning, being able to listen to music, see good movies, read good books. What else is there that I can’t, you know, I mean, I’m OK.

My mother was a Rockette at Radio City.

My daughter couldn’t wake me up, so they called 911. They rushed me to the hospital. They drilled a hole in my head and wrapped a coil around my brain. I was unconscious for a week, and I was in rehab for two months – couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk. Now I’ve relearned everything. I’m so happy.

The whole MS stuff put the kibosh on my career. And I sort of let it go. I even have a friend who went to CBS and said, ‘I want Teri Garr to be in this series,’ and the head of the network said, ‘Oh no, she’s got MS.’

I think I look pretty good. And I know there are human beings my age who look the way I do. There must be stories about us – not just about people who are young and good-looking.

When you hear the word ‘disabled,’ people immediately think about people who can’t walk or talk or do everything that people take for granted. Now, I take nothing for granted. But I find the real disability is people who can’t find joy in life and are bitter.

Speaking out about multiple sclerosis to others who may be dealing with this disease is actually helpful to me as well as, I hope, to others. It builds community, helps bring awareness to MS, and strengthens the MS movement that will ultimately lead to the end of this disease.

I have been off the motorcycles for about 20 years now, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still do it.

I didn’t tell people because I didn’t want pity, and I was afraid I wouldn’t get work. But others with MS need to know they are not alone. We don’t have to be victims.

I feel ashamed of how many houses I’ve actually crept inside of when they were up for sale. I’m not a snoop, but I love looking and imagining.

I don’t want to sound hoity-toity, but people told me I should watch ‘Cheers’ because it’s very funny. So I watched it, and I just went, ‘This is the great show of the universe?’ To me, acting is making characters believable, not just doing jokes.

My agents have me in the Actors’ Protection Program. It seems to be working very well. Nobody can find me.

My next book’s title is going to be, ‘I Have One Foot in the Grave and Another on a Banana Peel.’

I go to my physical therapist to keep fighting it and one of them told me if you don’t use it, you lose it, but I know we’re on television so I won’t say what I would often say.

Any movie I’ve ever made, the minute you walk on the set they tell you who’s the person to buy it from.