"I think it [Sex and the City] was one of the most dreadfully written shows! I thought it was sleazy. They're being discriminating if they say we have anything in common." (Rue McClanahan, 2004)

"Good evening, I'm Betty White. For seven wonderful years I shared the screen with three unforgettable women: a wise, cracking substitute school teacher, an oversexed ego-maniac and a feisty old lady who had a mouth like a sailor. Together we were known as the Golden Girls and tonight we gonna share with you some of our favorite moments including behind-the-scene stories and some hysterical never be foreseen outtakes. We're gonna start with a few scenes featuring Dorothy's mother: Sophia Petrillo, played by the remarkable Estelle Getty. Estelle has retired from show business so she won't be joining us tonight. But don't worry! We have plenty of hilarious moments featuring Estelle as Sophia."

"Dorothy Zbornak was probably the only totally sane person on the show. She was the reason that these four absolutely opposite types could live under the same roof. I don't think it could really ever happen in real life but I loved her: she had great humor but she was also the steady one. She was the great leveler, she was the great balloon pricker, if you will."

"Blanche Devereaux was not a sex thing. Blanche Devereaux was a sincere Southern girl who was looking for the one love of her life because she had lost George and that was the love of her life. Now she's looking for - she just keeps looking and she looks under every pillow and every pool table, everywhere she can find a man. But she was a very sincere, upbeat and so optimistic woman that it just made her a joy to play."

"I loved Rose. She was termingly naive. She wasn't dumb. She was just termingly naive with a heart of gold but she had a Viking temper. She had her own private agenda to life."

"We had such a good time playing those four Golden Girls. We were outspoken, outlandish and very often outrageous. And when it came to the sensitive subject of sexual relations, we could say and do things that other networks/sitcoms wouldn't dare touch. That was very little that my character couldn't get away with when there came uncontrolable need for the attentions of men... Perhaps because we four played single women of a certain age the show got many of its biggest laughs when the writers dealt with that universally beloved subject: sex..."

"We Golden Girls would get ourselves into so many priceless messes. The fun was duly the scripts and the situations which varied every week. And there were so many opportunities for the four of us to play those wonderful characters. Since I always loved performing, especially singing and dancing, I had a ball when I had the chance to do something totally different. Estelle (Sophia) signed us for a Mother Daughter Beauty Pageant at Shady Pines. And for the talent section we played Sony & Cher."

"If you asked me part of what made The Golden Girls click was the fact that no subject, big or small, was off limits, no issues too hot. Nothing was taboo. We got away with a lot because we always tackled sensitive subjects by injecting a key ingredient: lots and lots of humor. That's how we dealt with a variety of subjects like the change, as it was called, better known today as menopause."

"What I loved most about the show, in terms of the different characters, was the relationship with my mother which I thought was the most original I had ever seen. Number one: the difference in appearance. There I was: 5' 9.5'' (1,77m) in my stocking feet and she was 4' 10'' (1,46m). But this love-hate-thing... I mean, she constantly put me down and I can't stand the... Treated her like, like, like the beast that she was to me..."

"I remember I'd been handled a lot of scripts 'cause I didn't think I wanted to do another series after Maude. And I got this script and it was so brilliant. It was so funny, it was so intelligent. I mean that, I didn't even add to my mind that we were all older women. I just thought: What a piece of writing! But, so I definitely, you know, wanted to do the pilot."

"We created for the audience a place that they wanted to be. We created four friends that they wanted to invite into their home every single Saturday night. And that was really the cause for our success."

"We had an extraordinary cast. We had Susan Harris who, to my mind, was and still is one of the best writers in the business. At the peak of perform very excited about the opportunity to write for women of a certain age who television had really ignored up to this point."

"The Golden Girls was an idea from an NBC Executive who wanted to turn the Miami Vice franchise on its ear. The shows working title was Miami Nice and it featured four mature women living together as housemates."

"We had an auxiliary experience from the beginning. When we did the pilot of The Golden Girls it was spectacular. It was as close to perfect as I've ever seen in my life and we looked at each other and just were stunned by the perfection."

"Women have a different perspective. Women laugh at different things. And being a woman you tend to look at things that way so yes, there very definitely is a woman's voice. I believe that women are more tuned to people in a human way than men are. Women tend to look more at the person and who really resides there and I think that they are able to represent the characters."

"I remember that my agent at the time called me and said: "I hear you're doing a new series." And I said "I don't know what you're talking about." He said: "Oh yes, there's a new series called Golden Girls". And I said "I no nothing about it. No one has asked me." Well, I found out later, when they were sending the script around, the character of Dorothy was labeled as a Bea Arthur type."

"And as I began to read it, the role of Blanche just absolutely grabbed me. I said: "Oh, I know how to play this character!" So I called my agent. She said: "Don't get your heart on it because they want Betty White for that part. They want you to commit the Scandinavian, Rose."

"Well, then they switched the roles and they gave... - I mean, Rue McClanahan, Rosi took Blanche out into orbit where I would never had dared to go and she just made it so wonderful and at the same time I fell in love with Rose. I just adored her."

"The pilot was such a blueprint. Susan wrote such a brilliant script. It was perfect in the execution and it was perfect in the statement what the premise was. We did great shows but we stayed at that premise so excellently how these four women needed each other in that show and how these four women where such a family."