Top 35 Chita Rivera Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “I love to laugh, I love the joy of life, and I love sharing it.”

— Chita Rivera

2. “Beauty is not everything!”

— Chita Rivera

3. “I have a blessed life. I really do. I have a great family, a great daughter, I love life, I love living, I love people. I love all the blessings that God’s given me.”

— Chita Rivera

4. “The spirit of dance is an amazing thing. When the body and the spirit meet, it’s a good thing.”

— Chita Rivera

5. “My neighborhood was a great neighborhood; it was filled with all sorts of ethnic groups and things. So I grew up thinking I was a human being.”

— Chita Rivera

6. “You take a plug and put it in a socket, and that’s what the theatre is-it lights up right away. You speak, and they respond immediately.”

— Chita Rivera

7. “It’s communication – that’s what theatre is all about.”

— Chita Rivera

8. “You know I’ve got a generator that’s still popping.”

— Chita Rivera

9. “I am young in my energy because I really still believe that we can share who we are, and we can wipe off on each other. I see this huge tapestry when we’re born, and this red blob that’s your soul or your heart.”

— Chita Rivera

10. “A lot of Americans like happy endings, but life does not necessarily have a happy ending.”

— Chita Rivera

11. “I can tell you where my Tonys are. They’re in a beautiful place in my living room, in a glass cabinet.”

— Chita Rivera

12. “It’s important that the kids stay busy. It’s important that they have something to focus on, and something that they feel good about.”

— Chita Rivera

13. “Somebody told me once I wasn’t Latin enough, and that made me laugh.”

— Chita Rivera

14. “I’m not comfortable with just me, me, me. That’s boring.”

— Chita Rivera

15. “Theatre is immediate gratification.”

— Chita Rivera

16. “I’m bugged because I can’t believe I can’t speak every language there is. But I feel I can when I sit and am with somebody, and I can dance for them. Because dance is dialogue without language.”

— Chita Rivera

17. “I do believe that separation can be a bit damaging at times. To be happy about yourself and your culture and all of that is necessary and fulfilling, but the whole tapestry is what’s important.”

— Chita Rivera

18. “I never feel as though I’m ever, ever alone.”

— Chita Rivera

19. “I have to make this love affair believable enough. It’s very European.”

— Chita Rivera

20. “I love the theater because the theater is alive. The audience is right there.”

— Chita Rivera

21. “My hairdresser and I found ourselves shopping at Bloomingdale’s with nothing to do for days.”

— Chita Rivera

22. “Many of the shows I danced in don’t exist on film, but they do exist in the memories of those who were in the theater for that single moment in time. And nothing can replace that.”

— Chita Rivera

23. “I was busy welcoming a new experience. I had never done a movie before.”

— Chita Rivera

24. “San Francisco has just blown us all away. I also understand Angels in America didn’t do well there.”

— Chita Rivera

25. “I love life. I love the live theater.”

— Chita Rivera

26. “I’ve played American, Italian, Greek, French. I’ve been really lucky that way.”

— Chita Rivera

27. “I never like the way I look. I don’t. I never look at myself.”

— Chita Rivera

28. “You can feel whether an audience is tightened up and pulled back. Of course the opposite is an audience like we’ve been having in LA, which is fabulous.”

— Chita Rivera

29. “I really never felt any tremendous aggravation or separation.”

— Chita Rivera

30. “I have been very lucky, I have only had one bad experience.”

— Chita Rivera

31. “American audiences are affected by what the English people think.”

— Chita Rivera

32. “After about 15 minutes, you feel that you’re winning them over.”

— Chita Rivera

33. “We were taking collections for people with AIDS in New York around Easter.”

— Chita Rivera

34. “Looking back doesn’t have to be painful.”

— Chita Rivera

35. “I have always loved a challenge.”

— Chita Rivera