When I heard 'incurable'... incurable is a tough word.
— Valerie Harper
Don't waste the time you do have.
As physics has proven, we're ultimately particulate matter, which means we are all one. That's why racial and gender bias is so ridiculous.
All of us have the same thing coming - death. It's waiting. But I don't want to go. I want to live to be 102!
I've always been a team player.
I never smoked in my life. Neither did my mother. And so many women I meet whose mothers or aunts or whoever who have gotten lung cancer were no-time smokers.
I have an intention to live each moment fully.
Cancer reminds me of a very bad but tenacious performer who, although no one wants to see, insists on doing an encore, having a return engagement, making a comeback and, worst of all, going on tour.
Though I'm 75, I'm not looking forward to death, but it's there for all of us.
I'm talking about enjoying and finding pleasure and interest and happiness and curiosity every moment.
It's really important that we don't hang up the membership to the human community at menopause.
Sometimes I yell at my cancer cells, sometimes I make myself laugh.
I have cancer. It's in my brain... What are you gonna do about it?
I've always done character roles and tons of movies as the so-called star, but I always felt I was one of the team.
Every five minutes, every hour, every day, every year that you waste worrying about your cancer - you have forfeited time that you could have been alive having fun.
I don't have a reputation of being a super-witch who demands pink rugs in the dressing room.
As long as you're alive, you can do something.
I've had very deep moments of sadness. What I do is really sob, really cry, do whatever it is, and then kind of release it. Then I can go cook dinner or make a phone call to a friend.
Miracles occur, or people die the next day.
I've had a lot of great stuff - spectacular stuff - happen to me. I've got to not be a pig about life.
Life is amazing; live it to the fullest. Stay as long as you can.
I'm happier because I had to face what all of us try not to face: that we're going to die. It's a fact.
Live fully in the instant.
Luck is not an acceptable substitute for early detection.
I'm a perfect person to tell people not to give up.
Knowing that you have something you have to deal with, rising to the occasion, builds character.
Talk about a woman of a certain age - Pearl Buck was a great prototype of continuing to work. She was in the hospital dying of cancer, and in the next room was her secretary, typing out her next book.
Don't go to the funeral until the day of the funeral. Live this day.
Above all, learn to live when you're dying.
Forgiving is giving up the wish that things could have been different. They weren't. That's the past. Let it go.
Actors often want to look like they're comfortable. You want to go into an audition saying, 'I'm your gal. I'm what you need.' Yet you don't want to push.
Don't live in fear of dying.
I'm not dying until I do.
We all have a way to contribute, to your community, to your family, whatever it is you can do.
I felt sharing my experience may be of value or assistance in some way to others.
There are times when I cry. I'll sit in the chair and feel the depression, let it seethe. Then it starts to go away, and I find myself laughing, saying, 'Well, that was dramatic.'
The body is just a rooming house.
We think it's food that matters the most, but exercise and food both matter.
Mine's called leptomeningeal carcinomatosis. It's incurable. It's terminal. And it's in a tiny space - a huge area all around the brain and up and down the spine. But it's small area where the spinal fluid is. It's microscopic. You can't see it. It isn't lumps that they can say, 'Oh we can zap that.'
I first met Rhoda Morgenstern in the spring of 1970.
If you die, you're not a failure.
If I wake up in the night terrified, I try to find a way to not let the fear have me. Every moment you spend in fear of cancer is a moment you've wasted enjoying life. Replace that fear - get in the moment and enjoy it.
What we really wanted to call it was 'I Rhoda Book.'
You have to look life in the face, doing what you can where you can.
Really appreciate the sunset as you're driving home, cursing all the terrible drivers on the road. Be where you are when you're there rather than out there in the future or back there in the past.
With imagery, as actors know, you can make up anything you want to. You can put yourself in icy water to get rid of this or that.
I never did stand-up. If I've been funny ever, it was with other actors.
I had always wanted a steady job in this business, a show that lasted.
Comedy is saving me.
I wouldn't give people advice except to share with them what I'm doing, which is, You're alive - stay alive.
