(On The Divine Miss M character) “She’s just a character. I didn’t bury her. I love that character. That’s the only character that I ever made up by myself. I made her up out of whole cloth. I was in New York, I saw these people, I looked at these movies, I said, “This is what I want to be.” And that’s what I became. That’s what I made up. But then I didn’t want to get stuck in it, like how John Belushi did with his character. I didn’t want that character to run my life. I wanted to be able to go away somewhere and be quiet, be by myself and have a life. I really did want that more than anything. I never exactly put it in those words, but I really wanted to be who I always was. I mean, I didn’t think that anybody would buy what I had to say when I was just myself, because really I’m kind of a bore. But that character, there was nothing boring about her. She was lively, she had red hair, she swore, she wore dresses cut down to there, everybody loves that. Who wouldn’t want to be that? But that wasn’t what I was. I was never that. Not for a second. But I put it out and people were charmed by it.” (1991, Movieline) – Bette Midler
