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
Yeah I’m thirty-six, but on the show I’m thirty-two. Nobody wants to watch a thirty-six year old woman, so they decided to make me thirty-two. Much more appealing somehow. – Ellen DeGeneres
Trying to get the talk show, looking back on it, we had to beg a lot of station managers to pick up the show because people thought no one would watch it because I’m openly gay. – Ellen DeGeneres
I didn’t grow up in a house – we moved a lot, and we always lived in apartments. But we looked a lot; we went to open houses almost every weekend. I think that’s why I always wanted a house. – Ellen DeGeneres
I get bored easily, so I need to do a lot. I’ve started a record label, so I get to nurture new talent and talk about music, which is a passion of mine. I’ve written another book. And I get to come to work and do the TV show, which is always really fun. – Ellen DeGeneres
I’m probably the most honest person you’ll ever meet – to a fault, like, I-will-hurt-your-feelings honest. I’m sure if I lied about anything, it would have been silly, but I haven’t retained that information. – Ellen DeGeneres
I wanted to have money; I wanted to be special; I wanted people to like me; I wanted to be famous. – Ellen DeGeneres
I do have ADD and in real life, I’m all over the place and can hardly focus. If we were talking for, for more than an hour or so, I’d start drifting off… I can’t sit still too long. – Ellen DeGeneres
I learned compassion from being discriminated against. Everything bad that’s ever happened to me has taught me compassion. – Ellen DeGeneres
I hate having to do small talk. I’d rather talk about deep subjects. I’d rather talk about meditation, or the world, or the trees or animals, than small, inane, you know, banter. – Ellen DeGeneres
Right before I decided to come out, I went on a spiritual retreat called ‘Changing the Inner Dialogue of Your Subconscious Mind.’ I’d never been to anything like it before, and all my friends were taking bets on how long I’d last with no TV, no radio, no phone. But for me that was the beginning of paying attention to all the little things. – Ellen DeGeneres
Usually, I wear tennis shoes because my feet are flat, and it hurts to wear anything other than shoes that are cushiony. – Ellen DeGeneres
For some reason, we can’t just enjoy somebody else’s success. Somehow, that’s going to affect us. If they have more, then I have less – and I don’t know why. – Ellen DeGeneres
I don’t pay attention to the number of birthdays. It’s weird when I say I’m 53. It just is crazy that I’m 53. I think I’m very immature. I feel like a kid. That’s why my back goes out all the time, because I completely forget I can’t do certain things anymore – like doing the plank for 10 minutes. – Ellen DeGeneres
So many people prefer to live in drama because it’s comfortable. It’s like someone staying in a bad marriage or relationship – it’s actually easier to stay because they know what to expect every day, versus leaving and not knowing what to expect. – Ellen DeGeneres
People love their animals so much so that they put little clothes on them and necklaces and booties and things like that. And if you love your animal, then you should feed them something that’s not dangerous for them. There’s a lot of poisonous stuff that they’re putting in a lot of that food, those by-products. – Ellen DeGeneres
The first house I bought was a little Spanish bungalow on Clinton Street in West Hollywood, right behind the Improv. I was renting it, and I asked the owners if I could buy it, and they were really nice and let me work out a deal. And I fixed it up and later sold it. That was when I realized that if you make some improvements, you can make money. – Ellen DeGeneres
Faith is part of who I am, yes. I was raised Christian Scientist. The most important thing I saw every single week on the wall at Sunday school was the Golden Rule. – Ellen DeGeneres
I love kids. But that’s such a big commitment. And it seems long-term. It seems like a commitment that you have to stick with. And I just don’t know if I can – it’s too risky. Like, what if I don’t like the kid? – Ellen DeGeneres
People are constantly asking Portia and me if we are going to have children. We thought about it. We love to be around children after they’ve been fed and bathed. But we ultimately decided that we don’t want children of our own. There is far too much glass in our house. – Ellen DeGeneres
Portia and I constantly say to each other, ‘We are so lucky.’ Sometimes it’s lying in bed at night before I go to sleep, and I just say thank you to whatever, whoever is out there. – Ellen DeGeneres
Sometimes you can’t see yourself clearly until you see yourself through the eyes of others. – Ellen DeGeneres
I’ve moved about 10 times over the past 15 years. I don’t move for the sole purpose of getting rid of stuff. I’m not crazy. I also move so that I never have to wash any windows. – Ellen DeGeneres
Comedy can be, especially in a writer’s room, really aggressive, kind of a very male-dominated room, and it would be hard for women. It’s not a nurturing place. It’s not like a lot of women are going to say, I can’t wait to live that lifestyle and be in a writer’s room until 2 or 3 a.m. – Ellen DeGeneres
