Top 100 Sandra Bernhard Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Love is the only shocking act left on the face of the earth.”

— Sandra Bernhard

2. “Not everybody is cookie-cutter. You just can’t be. There are too many variables in life.”

— Sandra Bernhard

3. “I don’t believe in karma.”

— Sandra Bernhard

4. “Growing up in the ’60s and the ’70s, things certainly seemed more simplistic and easier to digest.”

— Sandra Bernhard

5. “I love National Geographic. Just when you think you’ve seen the last lost native tribe, National Geographic will find a new one.”

— Sandra Bernhard

6. “Gay pride’s beautiful. If somebody needs to be expressing that, then it’s a positive thing.”

— Sandra Bernhard

7. “I am still comfortable with my body, because I’m like, What’s not to be comfortable with? I mean, it’s just my nature.”

— Sandra Bernhard

8. “Random things make me laugh.”

— Sandra Bernhard

9. “I get happier every day. I have a sense of accomplishment every day of my life.”

— Sandra Bernhard

10. “Lots of people think that bisexual means cowardly lesbian.”

— Sandra Bernhard

11. “At no time do I come from a cynical point of view. I’m coming from a concerned point of view.”

— Sandra Bernhard

12. “When you’re constantly looking for things from other people, you’re not looking within yourself.”

— Sandra Bernhard

13. “I believe in people living their lives and having privacy.”

— Sandra Bernhard

14. “I’m sure that Jesus was an incredible person.”

— Sandra Bernhard

15. “My father was a proctologist and my mother was an abstract artist, so that’s how I view the world.”

— Sandra Bernhard

16. “People feel like if they don’t have a voice or a name or the spotlight, then they’re invisible. But if you can’t wake up in your world, in your life, with your family and your friends, and enjoy it, then forget it. All bets are off, because that’s all anybody is guaranteed.”

— Sandra Bernhard

17. “Purim, one of my favorite holidays. It’s like the original drag queen’s holiday. It’s when all the Jewish men go for it and feel no guilt for a change.”

— Sandra Bernhard

18. “I love performing. I love being a provocateur. I love putting myself in situations that are uncomfortable and that I have to get out of.”

— Sandra Bernhard

19. “I’m a sexual person. A lot of different people turn me on and have over the years, and I’ve always wanted to make it very clear that this was not coming from some sort of antimale point of view.”

— Sandra Bernhard

20. “It’s nobody’s business how you do something.”

— Sandra Bernhard

21. “There will come a day when Anne Heche will be straight again.”

— Sandra Bernhard

22. “Personally, I’m waiting for caller IQ.”

— Sandra Bernhard

23. “It’s depressing sitting at a comedy club all night, waiting to get on to do your five or ten minutes of material.”

— Sandra Bernhard

24. “How far can we go? How much can we absorb and still have some peace of mind?”

— Sandra Bernhard

25. “My family wasn’t the Brady Bunch. They were the Broody Bunch.”

— Sandra Bernhard

26. “I think people are a little bit intimidated by me. You know, I’m not exactly a wilting flower, so I think they’re a little bit scared of me sometimes.”

— Sandra Bernhard

27. “I was really going through a transition in my life. I was tired of feeling victimized by my career.”

— Sandra Bernhard

28. “Of course, everybody’s family is dysfunctional – we’ve accepted that. What are we supposed to do? Hate our parents for the rest of our lives?”

— Sandra Bernhard

29. “Onstage, I’m still wearing my fabulous, sheer dresses because I’m not that big.”

— Sandra Bernhard

30. “If you come home to a household of chaos and anger and fear, you’re not going to feel protected from the world.”

— Sandra Bernhard

31. “I’m not saying I’m some high priestess. I do things, I’m sure, that are damaging, but it’s certainly not on purpose.”

— Sandra Bernhard

32. “I was looking for something within Judaism that had a spiritual nature and not just a religious nature. So my trainer at the time was the one who took me to the Kabbalah center on my 40th birthday. I was like, “Oh, this is so cool.” I was just ready for it. I was ready for something different.”

— Sandra Bernhard

33. “You don’t need to be famous to live a life as an artist.”

— Sandra Bernhard

34. “Morality is standing by your friends, standing by people when it’s not popular. It’s sacrificing things on a big international stage, and sometimes it’s sacrificing your basic comforts.”

— Sandra Bernhard

35. “I knew I wanted to be a performer and do comedy at 5 years old. My dad’s wife, Marlene Rosenbaum, was boiling water and she goes, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I said, “A comedian.” And she laughed and laughed because she thought that was the cutest, funniest thing...”

— Sandra Bernhard

36. “When I was really little, I was skinny and people laughed at me for being skinny, so, we all pay our dues for the bodies we’re in one way or another. But thank god I haven’t needed to alter it to feel good about myself.”

— Sandra Bernhard

37. “Anything that has cynicism to it and that’s jaded is smutty.”

— Sandra Bernhard

38. “The fumes are killing us, and we wonder why things are going haywire.”

— Sandra Bernhard

39. “When you’re collaborating with somebody who’s got a lot of stuff they haven’t worked out yet, you’re working out their vision as well.”

— Sandra Bernhard

40. “I think bravery is when you’re willing to really put yourself on the line and maybe lose out, financially – and be able to say exactly what motivates you and what inspires you and what you find completely unacceptable in humanity and in culture.”

— Sandra Bernhard

41. “The most important, overriding arc of my career has been that I would never be self-deprecating.”

— Sandra Bernhard

42. “I’ve always gotten myself overly involved in supporting other women who’ve not always been as supportive in return.”

— Sandra Bernhard

43. “I think there are always different times in your life when you go, “Oh, god. I wish I were traditionally pretty. My life would be so much easier.” But then you get through that, and you go, “Well, I’m not.””

— Sandra Bernhard

44. “It’s up to couples, to individuals, to have a trust between each other.”

— Sandra Bernhard

45. “I really have a problem with any kind of drug, I always have.”

— Sandra Bernhard

46. “In the late ’60s and ’70s, when feminism was on the up sweep, there was an awareness of things that we’re losing again.”

— Sandra Bernhard

47. “When people pay to see you live, they connect with you on a much deeper level than people who just buy your records.”

— Sandra Bernhard

48. “I am always hoping to do another CD. This atmosphere has been difficult.”

— Sandra Bernhard

49. “A remembrance can mean nothing to the one remembered; it can only remind the ones left behind how little they did while you were still alive.”

— Sandra Bernhard

50. “I’ve always allowed myself to go on journeys creatively and emotionally, and never put, like, limits on myself.”

— Sandra Bernhard