Top 70 Teri Garr Quotes

My agents have me in the Actors’ Protection Program. It seems to be working very well. Nobody can find me.

My father died when I was 11. He was a vaudeville comedian. He worked in one movie, ‘Ladies of the Chorus,’ as Marilyn Monroe‘s father.

There’s people doing whatever the hell they want and getting away with it.

I remember some stories had a very big impact on me, like ‘The Little Train That Could,’ which is about the importance of not giving up, and ‘Little Toot,’ about a playful tugboat in the New York harbor.

There are things that you can do today that, years ago, there was nothing. The community today needs to know that with MRI and the current medications the view is good.

I don’t want to sound hoity-toity, but people told me I should watch ‘Cheers‘ because it’s very funny. So I watched it, and I just went, ‘This is the great show of the universe?’ To me, acting is making characters believable, not just doing jokes.

You have to find out what’s right for you, so it’s trial and error. You are going to be all right if you accept realistic goals for yourself.

This new movie, ‘Full Moon in Blue Water,’ I loved the idea of working with Gene Hackman, who is a great actor, but when I read the script, I threw it right into the trash can, because I didn’t like this woman. She was just a doormat.

When I was a dancer, I would see that dancers were treated like garbage. I mean like, like extras.

My next book‘s title is going to be, ‘I Have One Foot in the Grave and Another on a Banana Peel.’

I’m really grateful for my dancers’ discipline.

It doesn’t help to contemplate how sad your life is. You have to move on.

Being sensitive to the problem of women is just another symptom of the quality of movies: I don’t think you can do anything that’s very sensitive. Everything’s sort of broad strokes and big gestures – adventure things that boys, guys want to see.

I think there are a lot of myths about MS, and it may have affected my career.

Everyone I tell that I had an aneurysm always says, ‘Oh, my cousin died from that.’ Well, I didn’t, so I’m amazed. I was in a wheelchair, and I had to go to rehab. And now I’m walking!

If you get somebody laughing – and then stick in a point about something important – they’ll remember it.

I went to North Hollywood High. I’m the original Val girl.

I have one brother who is a surgeon, there’s me, and my other brother builds boats.

My doctor said, for want of a better word, now that we’ve got medicines out here that can help, let’s put you on one of them and say we’re treating MS.

When one woman found out I had multiple sclerosis, she said to me, ‘My heart bleeds for you.’ I said to her, ‘Well, my heart bleeds for you, because you’re an idiot.’

I have a disease, but I also have a lot of other things.

Any movie I’ve ever made, the minute you walk on the set they tell you who’s the person to buy it from.

What’s happening to me is I’m still happy and functioning, being able to listen to music, see good movies, read good books. What else is there that I can’t, you know, I mean, I’m OK.

People ask me about my limp. I say, ‘You know, I don’t know how bad it is, because I don’t watch – I don’t watch myself.’ I don’t look at it. I don’t.

If you get your foot in the door doing one kind of part, that’s the kind of role they call you for. I can’t say I resent it – then I would resent my whole career.

My mother was a real tough cookie. She raised the three of us, and she worked at the same time.

I had been nominated for an Academy Award for my performance as Sandy Lester, Dustin Hoffman’s neurotic, struggling actress girlfriend, in ‘Tootsie.’ Under Sydney Pollack’s direction, ‘Tootsie’ had been a runaway hit starring Dustin as an unemployed actor who pretends to be a woman in order to land a role in a soap opera.

I have been off the motorcycles for about 20 years now, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still do it.

Oddly enough, MS has made my life so much better than it was before. I now appreciate what I have and I am not running around like a rat in a maze.

If there’s ever a woman who’s smart, funny, or witty, people are afraid of that, so they don’t write that. They only write parts for women where they let everything be steamrolled over them, where they let people wipe their feet all over them.

Having to manage fatigue is something I and many people with MS have to deal with, and heat is no friend to my MS, either; it can be devastating.

I went to physical therapy, occupational therapy, voice, every kind of therapy except mental therapy – obviously!

Speaking out about multiple sclerosis to others who may be dealing with this disease is actually helpful to me as well as, I hope, to others. It builds community, helps bring awareness to MS, and strengthens the MS movement that will ultimately lead to the end of this disease.

There are several drugs out right now that can’t stop multiple sclerosis, but they can slow it way down. They also made me puff up like a balloon. So I looked horrible. I hated that.

I recently saw the movie about Ray Charles, and there’s a scene where he falls down and the mother doesn’t help him. She says, I don’t want anyone to treat you like a cripple. I’ve fallen down before, and Molly will say, get up and just go.

Usually, the extras have a different mentality. I had the mentality of an artist, because I was a ‘ballet-rina.’ But most extras are out to make a fast buck for nothing. They’re ‘atmosphere.’

I don’t let Molly watch much television. The only stations I let her watch are PBS and the Disney Channel. The cartoons on the other stations are too violent and filled with obnoxious commercials.

I was in an acting class taught by Eric Morris, and Jack Nicholson was in the class. He wrote the script for ‘Head’, so all of us in the class got little tiny parts in the movie.

I loved the stories my parents and grandparents would read to me.

My daughter couldn’t wake me up, so they called 911. They rushed me to the hospital. They drilled a hole in my head and wrapped a coil around my brain. I was unconscious for a week, and I was in rehab for two months – couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk. Now I’ve relearned everything. I’m so happy.

I feel ashamed of how many houses I’ve actually crept inside of when they were up for sale. I’m not a snoop, but I love looking and imagining.

I always say don’t be scared. It’s not that bad – there’s always something worse – and there is definitely life after multiple sclerosis.

What’s worse in Hollywood, being handicapped or being a woman over 50?

I didn’t tell people because I didn’t want pity, and I was afraid I wouldn’t get work. But others with MS need to know they are not alone. We don’t have to be victims.

When you hear the word ‘disabled,’ people immediately think about people who can’t walk or talk or do everything that people take for granted. Now, I take nothing for granted. But I find the real disability is people who can’t find joy in life and are bitter.

Joan Collins was the best. She really could sort of pull it off, be really outrageous and never even flinch.

Going to dancing school, or being in a play, is a very familial feeling. You’re around friends.

I think I look pretty good. And I know there are human beings my age who look the way I do. There must be stories about us – not just about people who are young and good-looking.

I talked once with Harrison Ford about Wright‘s houses and how impressive they are.

God is in all – I believe in God, yes. And I believe God is in us.

I started out in the 1970s doing the Wife, the Bimbo, and the Ditz, and if I somehow get a serious role, they all wanna know the same thing: When are you going back to comedy?

I go to Yosemite a lot. To get there, you fly from L.A. to Fresno and rent a car. So I know about Fresno. It looks like the entire city was built in 1946 in three months – all these low California ranch style homes. The whole city looks like that.

I’ve always been this insane. Isn’t that interesting?

I may not be able to run around the block anymore, but I love my life.

I take one of the interferon therapies, Rebif.

I have an enormous fondness for delicious food. It’s very comforting.

I think eventually they’re going to find out that MS is like 10 different things. I have a neurological disease something like MS, and it’s MS, so let’s take medicine for it.

My mother was a role model.

You can keep it to yourself, but you could also call a support team like the team at MS LifeLines. They are there to support the MS community and give good advice.

Elvis used to have parties at his house – and I’ve told this story a million times – but they weren’t really parties, because there was no chips or dip. Just Elvis and his boys watching TV, and him making funny comments, and everybody laughing at them. Is that a party? Not really. But that’s Hollywood.

Speed bumps, I was thinking, you know, you’re driving along, everything’s OK, and then there’s a speed bump to go, ‘Slow down.’ Go over it real slowly, and you hit the pedal, and you keep going, and I just thought it was kind of a nice metaphor for life.

I had to learn to walk again, talk again, think again.

Someday they may cure MS, that idiot thing. It gets in there and they can’t get it out.

I feel very badly about anybody that’s sick and in a wheelchair or not doing well. But you know, you have to go, ‘Life is a poker game, and we’re going to play our cards somehow.’

Please, people, don’t drink and vote. We’ll all pay for that.

When you’re a kid, you should be a kid.

If you get a diagnosis, get on a therapy, keep a good attitude and keep your sense of humor.

I get this thing every once in a while that I call ‘ESS:’ emergency sleep situation. I’ll get like lead, really fatigued, and I can’t move.

Someday, I’ll make the right connection with the house I’m meant to be in.

I do Pilates a lot. I don’t do a lot of cardiovascular stuff.