Bette Davis movie quotes

View Quote Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night. Note: ranked #9 in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema.

View Quote Margo Channing Autograph fiends, they're not people. Those are little beasts that run around in packs like coyotes...They're nobody's fans. They're juvenile delinquent, they're mental defective, and nobody's audience. They never see a play or a movie even. They're never indoors long enough.

View Quote Nice speech, Eve. But I wouldn't worry too much about your heart. You can always put that award where your heart ought to be.

View Quote He tried to make love to me and I shot him.

View Quote The boys take such good care of us. Funny the head boy running off tonight.

View Quote [to Howard] Poor Robert, he doesn't deserve it. He's never hurt anyone in his life. He's so good and simple and kind and he trusts me so. I mean everything, everything in the world to him. It's gonna ruin his life. Oh, I know what you're thinking. You despise me.

View Quote My mother didn't think that Leslie was suitable for a Vale of Boston. What man is suitable, Doctor? She's never found one. What man would ever look at me and say, "I want you"? I'm fat. My mother doesn't approve of dieting. Look at my shoes. My mother approves of sensible shoes. Look at the books on my shelves. My mother approves of good, solid books. I'm my mother's well-loved daughter. I'm her companion. I'm my mother's servant. My mother says. My mother! My mother! My mother!

View Quote Charlotte: Some man who'll make me happy? Oh, so that's it. So that's it. Well, I've certainly made a great mistake. Here I have been laboring under the delusion that you and I were so in sympathy, so one, that you'd know without being asked what would make me happy. And you come up here to talk about some man. Apparently, you haven't the slightest conception of what torture it is to love a man and to be shut out, barred out, to be always an outsider, an extra.
Jerry: Charlotte, let me...
Charlotte: Why, when Tina said she wanted to come home and stay with me, well, it was like a miracle happening. Like having your child, a part of you. And I even allowed myself to indulge in the fantasy that both of us loving her and doing what was best for her together would make her seem actually like our child after a while. But I see no such fantasy has occurred to you. Again, I've been just a big sentimental fool. It's a tendency I have.
Jerry: Wait a minute. I was afraid you were keeping Tina out of pity. But there was no note of pity in your ridicule of me just now. Now I know you still love me, and it won't die, what's between us. Do what we will - ignore it, neglect it, starve it, it's stronger than both of us together.
Charlotte: Please, let me go.
Jerry: Charlotte...
Charlotte: Please, let me go. Jerry, Dr. Jaquith knows about us. When he said I could take Tina, he said, "You're on probation." Do you know what that means? It means that I'm on probation because of you and me. He allowed this visit as a test, and if I can't stand such tests, I'll lose Tina, and we'll lose each other. Jerry, please help me.
Jerry: Shall we just have a cigarette on it?
Charlotte: Yes.
Jerry: May I sometimes come here?...
Charlotte: Whenever you like; it's your home too. There are people here who love you.
Jerry: ...and look at you and Tina? Share with you peace and contentment?
Charlotte: Of course, and just think, it won't be for this time only. That is, if you will help me keep what we have, if we both try hard to protect that little strip of territory that's ours. We can talk about your child...
Jerry: Our child.
Charlotte: Thank you.
Jerry: And will you be happy, Charlotte?
Charlotte: Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars. Note: bolded line is ranked #46 in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 movie quotations in American cinema.

View Quote Charlotte: Elliott and I have broken our engagement.
Mrs. Vale: Why have you done that?
Charlotte: Because I don't love him.
Mrs. Vale: Have you no sense of obligation to your family or to me? Here you have the chance to join our name Vale with one of the finest families in the city, Livingston, and you come in here to tell me that you aren't in love. You're behaving like a romantic girl of eighteen.
Charlotte: I don't doubt it.
Mrs. Vale: And what do you intend to do with your life?
Charlotte: Get a cat and a parrot and live alone in single blessedness.
Mrs. Vale: Stop rocking! You've never done anything to make your mother proud, or to make yourself proud either. Why, I should think you'd be ashamed to be born and live all your life as Charlotte Vale. Miss Charlotte Vale.
Charlotte: Dr. Jaquith says that tyranny is sometimes an expression of the maternal instinct. If that's a mother's love, I want no part of it. [Rising to her feet] I didn't want to be born. You didn't want me to be born either. It's been a calamity on both sides.
[Mrs. Vale suffers a fatal stroke and heart attack and dies]
Charlotte: Oh mother, let's not quarrel. We've been getting along together so well lately. It was a horrid ... thing to say.