- I admire education so much. Intelligence, erudition. But this is just where I want to be. I have respect for skill, for craft, the way the vaudevillians did. I adored Liberace. He and my sister drew attention to themselves with sequins and rhinestones, which I love in the right role. But it is a very small club, the people I want to be associated with. The life I want is not special in any sense of the word. The approval I've worked for is in very small print. I drive a Honda, I don't wear jewelry. I guess, in that way, I'm like my mother.
- I wish my sister [Gypsy Rose Lee] hadn't died at an early age. That she could have had the exquisite joy of growing old. It's just not fair to be cheated out of that.
- Everybody died. My sister, my mother, my husband. Almost all at the same time. I have no family nearby, I don't have anyone, I guess, to depend on. It turns out I've always been the one. People think you're so self-sufficient if you're good at what you do. It gets you the title of a strong woman and being one can be many things. It attracts people who need strength. I'm not against that. Everything good feeds back.
- I wasn't the beauty mother dreamed of. When I finally left, I said, "Look at me, Mom. I'm not dainty. I'm not a baby. It's all gone. Where do I go now? Because I am a gawky 12-year-old with no education. I'm not cute". The numbers I had learned to do weren't the style of the day. Let vaudeville die. I didn't want to die with it. But she was convinced vaudeville would come back. And I said, "I know I'm only 12 years old, but there is something out there better than this".
- I was never in an amateur contest in my life, like the opening scene in Gypsy (1962). That hurt me so.
- My sister was beautiful and clever - and ruthless. My mother was endearing and adorable - and lethal. They were the same person. I was the fool of the family. The one who thought I really was loved for me, for myself.
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