The Bette Davis Club Quotes

“But Finn was like no one else. He could be funny, teasing, informative all at once. I was discovering that smart, engaged dialogue with a man is extremely erotic. Cleverness is an aphrodisiac.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“I was thinking how most people don't make you feel much of anything at all. Don't make you feel like time spent with them has grace, like every moment in their company is a gift. But Finn did. Finn, my midsummer night's dream.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“It might interest you to know," Tully says, "that there's a reason people build miniatures. Doesn't matter if it's guys laying out model railroads or women decorating dollhouses. It's about control. It's about reinventing reality." [...] "Some people get a lot of satisfaction in creating a little world they can escape to. In making things turn out the way they want, at least in their dreams.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“Assuming you live through it, the best thing about falling apart is you get to put yourself back together.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“If you think about it, people spend a lot of time trying to hold on to things that are gone.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“I believe in giving as honest an answer as I can. Because perhaps if people spent more time being honest with each other, especially with children, there would be less unhappiness in the world.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“Tully starts in again. 'See, the hidden value can go way deeper than sentimental attachment. Sometimes you feel it down to your soul. Like maybe you're the one person who appreciates a work of art that everybody else hates. [...] This thing you treasure, this thing nobody else wants, could also be what you'd call organic. It could be alive. [...] That's what falling in love is, isn't it? Discovering the hidden value in someone.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“Still, they must have got a few things right," Malcolm says. His green eyes sparkle. "You turned out beautifully, if I may say so."
"Oh, you can say it," I reply, taking a drag off my cigarette. "Whether or not I'll believe you is something else entirely.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“But nothing's really free, is it? People always make you pay one way or another.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“my future was so bright, I was practically self-tanning.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“That man’s so far in the closet, he thinks he’s a coat hanger.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“A Star Is Born was remade two more times, with everybody from Judy Garland to Barbra Streisand playing the part based on Colleen Moore.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“She could summon security if she wanted to, or a squadron of flying monkeys.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“Life is just a bowl of scaries!”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“Obviously, your day has been far more wretched than mine.” “It’s not a contest,”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“we could relate to Dickens and Twain and Shakespeare and Ephron and Capra and Hitchcock—all those whom she considered so singularly excellent at the craft of storytelling. Mom loved a good zinger, loved a good turn, and she loved a good story.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“Some people get a lot of satisfaction in creating a little world they can escape to. In making things turn out the way they want, at least in their dreams.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“I don’t know why so many interesting men are homosexual. They say it’s ten percent of the population, but in my experience, it’s half the fellows worth knowing.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“We share the same DNA—and in our family, DNA stands for Denial Now and Always. The truth never came easily to our father, and it doesn’t come easily to his daughters.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“kindheartedness of my own”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“Then they discuss, As is their fashion, Such clever things, Devoid of passion—”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“Here’s the story, Margo,” Charlotte finally says. “I have a proposal for you. Ha-ha. Bad choice of words. Proposition is what I mean. I want you to go after Georgia and bring her back. Right away. Today, in fact.” Clearly, Charlotte is in the early stages of mad cow disease. Any minute, she’ll begin crawling round on the carpet, mooing like a Guernsey.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“In that moment, Tully and I share the truth of our existence. We’re twins; we’re soul mates. We are life’s underdogs. We’re the defeated, the conquered, the vanquished. We were made for each other.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“Myself, I knew a writer—not your father—who once told me his worst day writing was better than his best day not writing.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“It was because I would ask myself, What is the point? I would stay away for a while. But I always came back.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“I don’t know if you’re hip to this, but aside from genetics, the number one requirement for being a drunk is self-pity.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“But if you look at her early films, the best ones are all about Bette wanting a male she can’t have: Dangerous. All This, and Heaven Too. Jezebel. The Letter. Now, Voyager. They’re all about the unattainable. They’re all about a woman desiring a man she can never possess.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“The Bette Davis Club,” she said. “You’ve joined, you’re a member. It’s my metaphor for any female—and there’ve been zillions—who gets a crush on a gay fellow, dates a gay fellow, or heaven help us, marries a gay fellow.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“I was discovering that smart, engaged dialogue with a man is extremely erotic. Cleverness is an aphrodisiac.”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club

“Do our lives circle ceaselessly until, at last, we come back to our beginnings?”
― Jane Lotter, The Bette Davis Club