Ellen DeGeneres: Quotes about people

“People always ask me, 'Were you funny as a child?' Well, no, I was an accountant.”

“Things will get easier, people's minds will change, and you should be alive to see it.”

“It always helps to think about other people instead of ourselves.”

“I hope I make people feel better. I hope I take people out of their situations a little bit and make them happier. That's really why I do what I do.”

“I prefer to believe that people are good and honest and respect me enough to tell me the truth. It's not easy to find those people all the time, but they're out there.”

“Quick decision makers are often stuck behind annoying people in line at Starbucks.”

“Here are the values that I stand for: honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people the way you want to be treated and helping those in need. To me, those are traditional values.”

“I was raised around heterosexuals, as all heterosexuals are, that's where us gay people come from… you heterosexuals.”

“I think there's too much mult-tasking going on. I think people need to quiet down and focus and be still more.”

“I am saddened by how people treat one another and how we are so shut off from one another and how we judge one another, when the truth is, we are all one connected thing. We are all from the same exact molecules.”

“Don't you hate when people are late to work. And they always have the worst excuses. "Oh, I'm sorry I'm late, traffic." "Traffic, huh? How do you think I got here; helicoptered in!?"”

“I just like observing people — it's something I've done ever since I was a kid, and I got really good at it. That's a big part of why I became a comedian. My audience is filled with every kind of person you can imagine, and I love that.”

“"I knew if I came out, there was a possibility I would lose my career. But I didn't do it for my career, I did it for me to live my truth," she says. "I thought, 'I don't want to live and have any shame whatsoever.' I should be proud of who I am, and I don't care if people approve or not. It is who I am."”

“You have to have funny faces and words, you can't just have words. It is a powerful thing, and I think that's why it's hard for people to imagine that women can do that, be that powerful.”

“With all of our differences, we [members of the audience] all have one thing in common, we’re all gay. Now there are people out there [in audience] going “Do they think we’re gay because we’re here? Do we look gay? I told you this would happen. We’re not going to understand a word of this.” Seriously, though, if you're here you're probably gay. I mean, you have tendencies, you've thought about it. Now there are people [in audience] going “I have thought about it. Does that mean I'm gay? I'm not gay. Is that how they get us?””

“I don't want to get the same looks I give people when they get on a plane holding a baby: "That's a cute baby, just keep walking, keep walking, keep going, keep going…."”

“I wish that I wasn't seen differently. I wish that people looked at me and just saw that I was a good person with a good heart. And that wants to make people laugh. And that's who I am. I also happen to be gay. And I would love to have the same rights as everybody else. I would love, I don't care if it's called marriage. I don't care if it's called, you know, domestic partnership. I don't care what it's called. I mean, there are couples that have been together, 30 years, 40 years. And all of a sudden, they lose their house, you know, the taxes kill them, because it's different because they're not married. Everything is taken away just because. You know, with Sept. 11, there are a lot of people that lost their partner and didn't get the same benefits. It's not fair. And at the same time I know there are people watching right now saying, you know, it's sick it's wrong, it's this. And it's like, I can't convince them that I'm not sick or wrong, that there's nothing wrong with me. You know, I can live my life and hope that things change, and hope that we're protected as any other couples”

“I think I'm healthier than I've ever been. I'm happier than I've ever been. I'm more myself. I can't stress that enough," Ellen says. "I think kindness is the key to yourself and to other people. … I think I found out who I was, and I think I really try to be a better person every single day. And she [sc. Portia de Rossi, her wife] makes me better.”

“Yes, we're lazy. Yet we also can't seem to sit still. So we've started making things like GO-GURT. That's yogurt for people on the go. Let me ask you, was there a big mobility problem with yogurt before? How time-consuming was it, really? [pretending to be on the phone:] "Hello?…Oh, hi, Tom…oh, I've been dying to see that movie…Umm, no…I just opened up some yogurt…Yeah, I'm in for the night…No, not even later-it's the kind with fruit on the bottom. Well, have fun. Thanks anyway."”