Sophie Tucker Quotations

I have been poor and I have been rich. Rich is better.

Success in show business depends on your ability to make and keep friends.

Gradually, at the concerts, I began to hear calls for 'the fat girl'.... Then I would jump up for the piano stool, forgetting about my size [145 lbs at age 13], and work to get all the laughs I could get.

Playing two months or more in one city meant new songs all the time. If people paid their dimes to see and hear Sophie Tucker, they didn't want to hear the same songs over and over or see the same clothes.

It is a commentary on Berlin in 1931 that ... it was 'My Yiddishe Momme' that the Berlin Broadcasting Company asked for.

I would start off with a lively rag, then would come a ballad, followed by a comedy song and a novelty number, and finally, the hot song. In this way, I left the stage with the audience laughing their heads off.

The key to longevity: keep breathing.

Once you start carrying your own suitcase, paying your own bills, running your own show, you've done something to yourself that makes you one of those women men like to call 'a pal' and 'a good sport,' the kind of woman they tell their troubles to. But you've cut yourself off from the orchids and the diamond bracelets, except those you buy yourself.

I've been rich and I've been poor; Believe me, honey, rich is better.

Even though I loved the song [My Yiddish Momme] and it was a sensational hit every time I sang it, I was always careful to use it only when I knew the majority of the house would understand Yiddish. However, you didn't have to be a Jew to be moved by 'My Yiddish Momme.' 'Mother' in any language means the same thing.