Tina Fey

The only reward for anything is food.

I would say that one of your greatest accomplishments, Amy Poehler, is that you have so successfully used your art and comedy as a source of positivity in the world, by creating Smart Girls [an online community for girls, encouraging them to be their authentic selves], by making [Leslie in] Parks and Rec not only a positive feminist character but creating a good-hearted worldview within that program.

I really love cursing a lot. But as I get older, I realize it’s a little unseemly for women of a certain age.

When I was really young, I loved the movie ‘White Christmas’ – I still do – and I thought Rosemary Clooney was so pretty. When I was, like, nine, I would tell people, ‘You know who I kind of look like? Rosemary Clooney.’

Nothing is creepier than a bunch of adults being very quiet.

The woman who did the costumes tried to put me in these Waspy clothes, and it just didn’t work. I feel like ethnicity and fashion go together. So, yeah, knockers up and tight skirts. Somehow it’s better.

For me, singing sad songs often has a way of healing a situation. It gets the hurt out in the open into the light, out of the darkness.

I was just taking out my trash and I had, like, 300 cans of Diet Coke. It was just like, ‘How did that happen?’ I don’t even remember buying them. I also like Cinnamon Toast Crunch. My addictions are pretty much the only things I consume.

Growing up is not being so dead-set on making everybody happy.

[On trying to get out of the part of June Carter Cash in Walk the Line] I called my attorney. My agent. My manager. I said “You know y’all, you’re serious about this? I’m really.. I gotta get out of this. Like can’t they call ‘Leann Rimes’? I mean she’s good.

When you are followed constantly by fanatic fans,you try to eliminate the times you come up against them.That’s why I hide myself sometimes.

I believe I was definitely sent down here to take people away for a little while, to make them happy.

Once you get rid of the idea that you must please other people before you please yourself, and you begin to follow your own instincts – only then can you be successful. You become more satisfied, and when you are, other people will tend to be satisfied by what you do.

I grew up in a family of Republicans. And when I was 18 and registering to vote, my mom’s only instruction was ‘You just go in and pull the big Republican lever.’ That’s my welcome to adulthood. She’s like, ‘No, don’t even read it. Just pull the Republican lever.

The crowds treat me like my last name. When I go onstage people usually stand up, I never ask them to, but they do. They stand up and they don’t know how much I appreciate it.

You’re only given a little spark of madness. You mustn’t lose it.

I never get to go to movies, because I’m a mom.

I love Obama. I’m sure we’ll hang out, go to Richard Branson’s island. It’ll be cool.

I remember failing my Princeton interview. My mom wanted me to apply because ever since I was a kid she had this dream that I would apply to Princeton, but it was just not happening.

A lot of them also looked a little further down the line in the future than we did. We always did everything out of Level Cross (N.C.) in the backyard and we were fairly successful with the thing. Then it started being a bigger and bigger business. It started going and bringing more people in, more money, more technology, that kind of stuff. We still sat there in the backyard. By the time we got ready to do something about it, we were so far behind on our money and our engineering and all that stuff it’s just taken us a little time to get going.

[on which film had a bigger impact on her career – “The Notebook” or “Mean Girls”] For me personally it would be The Notebook. That was something I was dying to do when I read the script. I worked with so many amazing people and people responded so well to that film, and continue to. In terms of an impact on my career, that was significant. Mean Girls speaks to a really large audience, which is the kids and they eat that stuff up. I don’t know. It’s hard to choose.