There have been people who have tried to take advantage of me. They want to be linked to me just because I'm Ethel Merman.

At a flea market I always head for the junk jewelry table first.

I was lucky enough to have the songs in my first show written by George and Ira Gershwin. Then Cole Porter wrote five shows for me

At one time I smoked, but in 1959 I couldn't think of anything else to give up for Lent so I stopped - and I haven't had a cigarette since.

I've never cooked. I can't do much more in the kitchen than make a cup of tea and some toast.

Any audience that gets a laugh out of me gets it while I'm facing them

There's such a thing as theater discipline. One player doesn't appropriate another's inventions

Broadway has been very good to me. But then, I've been very good to broadway.

I can never remember being afraid of an audience. If the audience could do better, they'd be up here on stage and I'd be out there watching them.

I can hold a note as long as the Chase National Bank.

I wouldn't change one thing about my professional life, and I make it a point not to dwell on my mistakes

You are more powerful than your government, and your government are worried the day you discover it!!!

My idea of good living is not about eating high on the hog. Rather, to me, good living means understanding how food connects us to the earth.

Whether I'm at the office, at home, or on the road, I always have a stack of books I'm looking forward to reading.

Take a ride on heavy metal, it's the only way that you can travel down that road.

There is an energy in New York that is like nowhere else I've been, and I feel free there, and that is inspiring.

Argument is to me the air I breathe. Given any proposition, I cannot help believing the other side and defending it.

The more relaxed you can get, the better you'll do

I certainly have the feeling that I'm the same person even though I've changed a great deal.

Tis the only comfort of the miserable to have partners in their woes.

Every generation will be challenged morally once in their life about its government, and they will have to say where they stand.