32 Ellen DeGeneres Quotes

Ellen DeGeneres quotes

1. I remember one day I was coming home from kindergarten I--well, I thought it was kindergarten, it turned out later I'd been working in a factory for two years... I was wondering 'cause it was always really hot and everyone was older than me, but, um, what did I know?

2. I think the hard thing about this job [stand-up] - I mean, I think this part is great - but that the traveling is y'know, 'cause - 'cause I'm gone a lot from home and this time I'm out for three-and-a-half weeks without going home, and that's hard, to be gone three-and-a-half weeks 'cause then I have to ask my friends, 'Would you mind going to the house and watering the plants, and turn some lights on and make it look like somebody's home, and make sure that the mobile over the crib isn't tangled or the baby's gonna get bored...'

3. Don't you hate when people are late to work. And they always have the worst excuses. 'Oh, I'm sorry I'm late, traffic.' 'Traffic, huh? How do you think I got here; helicoptered in!?'

4. I'm a - I'm a, um, a godmother which is just, that's fun to be a godmother, she is so precious, she's the light of my life, she's two... or five or something, and she's, uh... I don't know, I've never seen her - the pictures are precious, she just seems so, y'know... She lives clear across town, I don't have that kind of time, but, um... Well, I send money and stuff, it's not like I don't have a connection....

5. I don't want to get the same looks I give people when they get on a plane holding a baby: 'That's a cute baby, just keep walking, keep walking, keep going, keep going....'

6. If we don't want to define ourselves by things as superficial as our appearances, we're stuck with the revolting alternative of being judged by our actions, by what we do.

7. We're told to go on living our lives as usual, because to do otherwise is to let the terrorists win, and really, what would upset the Taliban more than a gay woman wearing a suit in front of a room full of Jews?

8. Yes, we're lazy. Yet we also can't seem to sit still. So we've started making things like GO-GURT. That's yogurt for people on the go. Let me ask you, was there a big mobility problem with yogurt before? How time-consuming was it, really? [pretending to be on the phone:] 'Hello?...Oh, hi, Tom...oh, I've been dying to see that movie...Umm, no...I just opened up some yogurt...Yeah, I'm in for the night...No, not even later-it's the kind with fruit on the bottom. Well, have fun. Thanks anyway.'

9. Now we have hands-free phones, so you can focus on the thing you're really supposed to be doing ... chances are, if you need both of your hands to do something, your brain should be in on it too.

10. I have a terrible problem with procrastination... a friend told me, 'Well, you should go to therapy. And I thought about it, but then I said, 'Wait a minute. Why should I pay a stranger to listen to me talk when I can get strangers to pay to listen to me talk?' And that's when I got the idea of touring.

11. With all of our differences, we [members of the audience] all have one thing in common, we're all gay. Now there are people out there [in audience] going 'Do they think we're gay because we're here? Do we look gay? I told you this would happen. We're not going to understand a word of this.' Seriously, though, if you're here you're probably gay. I mean, you have tendencies, you've thought about it. Now there are people [in audience] going 'I have thought about it. Does that mean I'm gay? I'm not gay. Is that how they get us?'

12. Procrastinate now, don't put it off.

13. Let's say, for instance, I'm out of cheese. And then I'll think, oh, but what if I go to the store and they're out of cheese? I'd be like, 'How can you be out of cheese?' 'What do you mean 'How can we be out of cheese?' You're out of cheese. People run out of cheese.' Then I'd be like, 'Yeah, but you're a store. You should have cheese stocked up in the back for people like me coming in looking for cheese.' And that's when they send the manager over, who thinks he's so cool for being the manager 'cause his picture's framed in the front of the store 'cause he's the manager, you know. And he'd be like, 'What seems to be the problem, ma'am?' Which to me is so condescending, like 'little lady.' I'd be like, 'The little lady's problem.:' He'd be like, 'Who's the little lady?' I'd be like, 'Shut up and listen to me. You're out of cheese and I want some.' And, he's like, 'Well, how about some cottage cheese?' Like he's going to negotiate the situation, he's a diplomat because he's the manager. And I'd be like, 'I don't want cottage cheese; I want cheddar cheese. Sharp cheddar cheese is what I came in for. Sharp cheddar cheese and cottage cheese are not the same things. Just 'cause they have the name cheese in the title doesn't make it a cheese at all. That'd be like going into a musical instrument store and saying 'I'd like to buy a trumpet,' and them saying 'I'm sorry, we're all out of trumpets, but would you like a shoehorn?' See, that's not the same thing, is it, Mr. Manager?' ('Thank you for the shoe horn,' you know.) And he starts getting all nervous and everything, because a crowd has formed and he starts feeling humiliated because they're all sitting around mumbling 'What seems to be the problem?,' I don't know, she wants some cheese.' And, so, um, he just slaps me right across the face. And, umm, so that's when Skip, the part time guy who works there, who hates the manager 'cause he thinks so cool for being the manager and treats Skip like shit because he's just the part time guy. And Skip's going to quit in the fall and go back to school anyway. He doesn't even need the money; he's from a wealthy family. He's just doing it for the experience because his family wants him to work one summer. And, so anyway, so, he takes the hose, and he goes to spray the manager right in the eye, right, and so, but that's when he's leaning down to pick the cottage cheese, so he misses him and he gets this old woman who's standing right behind him, and she's there picking out an avocado, because the older you are the less you eat and she all she wants is the avocado. So she screams out, 'my eye, I've been sprayed in the eye with a produce hose.' And so then that's when her nephew who's visiting from Austin Texas is two aisles over buying tortilla chips because he thinks they're going to have guacamole. Little does he know it's one avocado. And so, he starts running 'I'll help you, aunt so and so,' running, and then when he's running down the aisle when he slips on some water from the produce hose, breaks his leg, breaks his arm, bruises two ribs right there: gets a stitch put in his cheekbone, just one, but still, it's a stitch. Chaos breaks out and it's all over Hard Copy and Entertainment Tonight and Access Hollywood: 'Lesbian Demands Cheese, Causes Riot.' And I'm like, 'I didn't even want the cheese.' You know?

14. What could be going so wrong that they need to check on you that often....'My bra's in my ass!!'....'Rachel' (mouths pointing to her ass 'My bra's in my ass' and again 'My bra's in my ass' shakes head no and air spells out A-S-S and then motions her to come here). I'd like to see how far they'd go to help you when you tell them your bra's in your ass.' 'Oh my, it's in the ass...do you need a different size or color? I don't know what to do about the bra in the ass. I'll get the manager I don't know.

15. In the beginning there was nothing. God said, 'Let there be light!' And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a whole lot better.

16. It must be so humiliating to have such a public break-up.

17. My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She's ninety-seven now, and we don't know where the hell she is.

18. This business manipulates and screws up women's - and men's - views of what we're all supposed to look like: My gender-bender style is apparently a bore.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

1. People are constantly asking Portia and me if we are going to have children. We thought about it. We love to be around children after they've been fed and bathed. But we ultimately decided that we don't want children of our own. There is far too much glass in our house.

2. I wanted to have money; I wanted to be special; I wanted people to like me; I wanted to be famous.

3. I think what saved me is me being honest. I think I somewhow had the courage to do something and say something that I knew would possibly end my career. Instead of making business more important I made my soul and my life more important. And I think by being truthful, and being honest, that saved me.

4. I think there's too much mult-tasking going on. I think people need to quiet down and focus and be still more.

5. We can sit and worry about what's going to happen to us two weeks from now. I'd rather focus on the amazing things happening right in front of us.

6. It's our challenges and obstacles that give us layers of depth and make us interesting. Are they fun when they happen? No. But they are what make us unique. And that's what I know for sure... I think.

7. I had done a sitcom and a movie and hosted the Emmys, and all of a sudden, I lost everything. As someone put it at the time, I was suddenly like a Ferrari in neutral.

8. The thing everyone should realize is that the key to happiness is being happy for yourself and yourself.

9. Save a life this Thanksgiving, and join me in starting a new tradition by adopting a turkey instead of eating one through Farm Sanctuary's Adopt-A-Turkey Project.

10. Answers to Frequently Asked Questions: Yes. Yes. No. One time in high school. Three times in my twenties. Rocks no salt. Yes. Four. Never. And how dare you! I will take no further questions.

11. Actually this is really funny - one time she accidentally forgot to leave a note and I had no idea she had even moved. I was living in the house with a beautiful Mexican family for three months before I realized they weren't my cousins visiting from out of town. They were so nice. They called me "Quien es, quien es," which I thought was a beautiful name.

12. A circus! 100 clowns of injustice have climbed out of the tiny clown car of this court room.

13. Gratitude is looking on the brighter side of the life, even if it means hurting your eyes.

14. What's New Orleans without music? And what's music without dancing?