Ellen DeGeneres

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.
– Ellen DeGeneres

Because you can’t rely on other people, for your own ego you need daily affirmations. Some
obvious affirmations are: “I am a good person.” or “I love myself” or “I matter.” But I think it’s
a good idea to start small. You should say things that make you feel good because they are
easy to accomplish. (“I will wake up.” “I will brush my teeth.”) Don’t push yourself. Those can
be very good morning affirmations. I guess, though, if you’re really depressed, and it’s 8
o’clock at night, “I will wake up” would technically be an evening affirmation.
– Ellen DeGeneres

You can put high heels on a poodle, but that won’t make it a hooker.
– Ellen DeGeneres

My friend’s dog has a sweater, but he wears it wrapped around his shoulders.
– Ellen DeGeneres

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?
– Ellen DeGeneres

I don’t need a baby growing inside of me for nine months, either. For one thing, there’s
morning sickness. If I’m going to feel nauseous and achy when I wake up, I want to achieve
that state the old-fashioned way: getting good and drunk the night before.
– Ellen DeGeneres

My favourite exercise is walking a block and a half to buy fudge. Then I call a cab to get me
home. There’s never a need to overdo anything.
– Ellen DeGeneres

– So, what should we call you, gay or lesbian?
– How about Ellen?
– Ellen DeGeneres

You can always tell when the relationship is over. Little things start grating on your nerves.
“Would you please stop that! That breathing in and out, it’s so repetitious!”
– Ellen DeGeneres

Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car
that you are still paying for – in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and
the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.
– Ellen DeGeneres

My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She’s ninety-seven
now, and we don’t know where the heck she is.
– Ellen DeGeneres

Stuffed deer heads on walls are bad enough, but it’s worse when they are wearing dark
glasses, and have streamers in their antlers because then then you know they were enjoying
themselves at a party when they were shot.
– Ellen DeGeneres

I feel extremely lucky to have my own TV show. Every day I pinch myself because I’m sure I
must be dreaming. Actually, I don’t pinch myself. It’s one of my manager’s jobs to pinch me
and say, “You ain’t dreamin’, kid!” Then I pinch him, he pinches me back, and it usually ends
up in a slap fight. Sometimes the slap fight lasts until midnight.
– Ellen DeGeneres

I wonder what will happen if I put a hand cream on my feet, will they get confused and start
clapping?
– Ellen DeGeneres

The only thing that scares me more than space aliens is the idea that there aren’t any space
aliens. We can’t be the best that creation has to offer. I pray we’re not all there is. If so,
we’re in big trouble.
– Ellen DeGeneres

Do things that make you happy within the confines of the legal system.
– Ellen DeGeneres

Hey, Debbie, this is Ellen. That’s a real cute phone message. You sounded just like Elmer
Fudd. Geez, I hope you were trying to sound like Elmer Fudd. If you weren’t, I’m terribly
sorry. Thanks for saying that you’d watch my house while I’m gone next week on vacation to
the Luxembourg Soft Cheese and Jazz Festival. I know you said you would water the plants,
bring in the mail and turn some lights on so that it looks like somebody is home. But if it’s not
too much of an imposition, could you also make sure that the mobile over the crib isn’t
tangled? Otherwise, the baby is just going to get bored. I never knew having a kid was so
much responsibility! Bye bye.
– Ellen DeGeneres

Do we have to know who’s gay and who’s straight? Can’t we just love everybody and judge
them by the car they drive?
– Ellen DeGeneres

I have to wear pants. I had both of my legs tattooed all over with designs of bougainvillea.
Now, if I wear a skirt, I am constantly bothered by bees.
– Ellen DeGeneres

We used to have fire drill practice in my house. Everyone had their own special duty. My dad
had to get the pets, my mom took the jewellery, my brother ran to get help. They told me to
save the washer and dryer.
– Ellen DeGeneres

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.
– Ellen DeGeneres

Accept who you are. Unless you’re a serial killer.
– Ellen DeGeneres

I don’t have a type. It took me this long to narrow it down to a gender.
– Ellen DeGeneres

We always do this: we walk up to an elevator, someone’s already there, they’re waiting,
they’ve pushed the button, the button is lit. We walk up and push the button, thinking,
“Obviously you didn’t push it correctly. I’ll have to push it myself. NOW the elevator will
come.” Then someone else walks up and they push the button again. Suddenly you’re
offended. You want to say, “You idiot, I pushed it, he pushed it.” Then, to the original
pusher, “Can you believe people?”
– Ellen DeGeneres

All the commercials on TV today are for antidepressants, for Prozac or Paxil. And they get
you right away. “Are you sad? Do you get stressed, do you have anxiety?” “Yes, I have all
those things! I’m alive!”
– Ellen DeGeneres

Here are the values that I stand for: honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people
the way you want to be treated and helping those in need. To me, those are traditional
values.
– Ellen DeGeneres

My point is, life is about balance. The good and the bad. The highs and the lows. The pina
and the colada.
– Ellen DeGeneres

When I’m on a plane, I can never get my seat to recline more than a couple of centimetres,
but the guy in front of me – his seat comes back far enough for me to do dental work on him.
– Ellen DeGeneres

For a long time I thought I knew for sure who I was. I grew up in New Orleans and became a
comedian. And there was everything that came along with that. The nightclubs. The smoking.
The drinking. Then I turned 13.
– Ellen DeGeneres

It makes a big difference in your life when you stay positive.
– Ellen DeGeneres

If you want to test cosmetics, why do it on some poor animal who hasn’t done anything
wrong? They should use prisoners who have been convicted of murder or rape instead. So,
rather than seeing if some perfume irritates a bunny rabbit’s eyes, they should throw it in
Charles Manson’s eyes and ask him if it hurts.
– Ellen DeGeneres

Procrastinate now, don’t put it off.
– Ellen DeGeneres

I ask people why they have deer heads on their walls. They always say because it’s such a
beautiful animal. There you go. I think my mother is attractive, but I have photographs of
her.
– Ellen DeGeneres

I learned compassion from being discriminated against. Everything bad that’s ever happened
to me has taught me compassion.
– Ellen DeGeneres

I’ll see stray dogs wandering in front of houses and they look so sad. I just feel compelled to
do something to rescue them. Sometimes it’s hard because they’re tied on a leash on
someone’s front lawn, so you’ve got to untie it. Or worse, they’re behind a fence, so you
need wire cutters (which I always have in my car) to get them out. “C’mon, girl. I’ll rescue
you and find your owners.”
– Ellen DeGeneres

Sometimes you can’t see yourself clearly until you see yourself through the eyes of others.
– Ellen DeGeneres

Our flaws are what makes us human. If we can accept them as part of who we are, they
really don’t even have to be an issue.
– Ellen DeGeneres

Penguins mate for life. Which doesn’t exactly surprise me that much ’cause they all look alike
– it’s not like they’re gonna meet a better-looking penguin someday.
– Ellen DeGeneres

Have you ever heard somebody sing some lyrics that you’ve never sung before, and you
realize you’ve never sung the right words in that song? You hear them and all of a sudden
you say to yourself, “Life in the Fast Lane?” That’s what they’re saying right there? You
think, “why have I been singing ‘wipe in the vaseline?” how many people have heard me sing
“wipe in the vaseline?” I am an idiot!
– Ellen DeGeneres

People always ask me, “Were you funny as a child?” Well, no, I was an accountant.
– Ellen DeGeneres

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.
– Ellen DeGeneres

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

When you take risks you learn that there will be times when you succeed and there will be
times when you fail, and both are equally important.
– Ellen DeGeneres

Our attention span is shot. We’ve all got Attention Deficit Disorder or ADD or OCD or one of
these disorders with three letters because we don’t have the time or patience to pronounce
the entire disorder. That should be a disorder right there, TBD – Too Busy Disorder.
– Ellen DeGeneres

Take a nap in a fireplace and you’ll sleep like a log.
– Ellen DeGeneres

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?”
– Ellen DeGeneres

In Hollywood, children don’t wear masks on Halloween. Instead, they usually dress up as
agents, valet parkers, or second-unit directors.
– Ellen DeGeneres

I’m a godmother, that’s a great thing to be, a godmother. She calls me god for short, that’s
cute, I taught her that.
– Ellen DeGeneres

High heels should be outlawed (at the very least there should be a five-day waiting period
before you can buy them). They destroy your feet. It should be mandatory that the Surgeon
General print a warning label on high heels like they do on a package of cigarettes (i.e.
Warning: These shoes can lead to lower back pain, aching toes, and the illusion that you’re
taller than you actually are).
– Ellen DeGeneres

Beauty is about being comfortable in your own skin. It’s about knowing and accepting who
you are.
– Ellen DeGeneres

When I was growing up, we had a petting zoo, and a heavy petting zoo – for people who
really liked the animals a lot.
– Ellen DeGeneres

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.
– Ellen DeGeneres

When you’re walking down the street and you think you’ve spotted your favorite celebrity but
you want to be sure, just remember this rule of thumb: A horse sweats, a man perspires, a
woman glows – but only a celebrity twinkles.
– Ellen DeGeneres

You know, it’s hard work to write a book. I can’t tell you how many times I really get going on
an idea, then my quill breaks. Or I spill ink all over my writing tunic.
– Ellen DeGeneres

The world is full of a lot of fear and a lot of negativity, and a lot of judgment. I just think
people need to start shifting into joy and happiness. As corny as it sounds, we need to make
a shift.
– Ellen DeGeneres

Follow your passion. Stay true to yourself. Never follow someone else’s path unless you’re in
the woods and you’re lost and you see a path. By all means, you should follow that.
– Ellen DeGeneres

Laugh. Laugh as much as you can. Laugh until you cry. Cry until you laugh. Keep doing it
even if people are passing you on the street saying, “I can’t tell if that person is laughing or
crying, but either way they seem crazy, let’s walk faster.” Emote. It’s okay. It shows you are
thinking and feeling.
– Ellen DeGeneres