Tina Fey

I don’t fit the mold. In this country, success usually happens when you are 22 and six feet tall. Clearly, by asking that question they are kind of letting me know that I am an aberration.

For my first show at ‘SNL’, I wrote a Bill Clinton sketch, and during our read-through, it wasn’t getting any laughs. This weight of embarrassment came over me, and I felt like I was sweating from my spine out. But I realized, ‘Okay, that happened, and I did not die.’ You’ve got to experience failure to understand that you can survive it.

A lot of times we talk about the politics of it, the unfairness of it, which is all true, but I think it’s clearer to people when you go, ‘Hey, that hurts my feelings.’

The only way I could get comfortable around people was to make them laugh. I was an obedient girl, and humor was my one form of rebellion.

Left to my own devices, I dress like I’m here to service your aquarium.

Yeah, it’s tough being smart and sexy, too. I have to say, I’m really not that attractive. Until I met my husband, I could not get a date. I promise you it’s true. My husband Jeff Richmond saw a diamond in the rough and took me in.

You can only live on the past for so long, and we kind of stretched our luck on that. We think we’re on the way back, but it’s just a matter of how quickly things come together. Common sense tells you it’s not going to happen overnight because we’re trying to catch up.

I’ve already done so much. The rest is just gravy, it’s like frosting on the cake

We have a president for whom English is a second language. He’s like ‘We have to get rid of dictators,’ but he’s pretty much one himself.

For anyone who feels the need to hate, just know I’m looking at my phone like #GirlBye!

The sweetest thing a guy said is that I look pretty with or without makeup.

I made my life ambitious and big and crazy, and basically now I am the helmsman of this mad affair, and I need to take stock. I write these songs, and I live and die in the middle of them, but I can’t really tell you the truth about me, cause I don’t know what it is. It’s a f***ing great journey but it doesn’t all smell of roses.

Relax, stop overdoing it, and just breathe for a second.

If you have paparazzi, you know you’ve gotten somewhere.

I am looking for a man I couldn’t beat in a cage fight.

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.

George Clooney married Amal Alamuddin this year. Amal is a human rights lawyer who worked on the Enron case, was an adviser to Kofi Annan regarding Syria, and was selected to a three-person U.N. commission investigating rules of war violations in the Gaza Strip. So tonight, her husband is getting a lifetime achievement award.

I’m a sucker for those sweeping love stories. When I read the script (The Notebook), I couldn’t stop crying! I just had such a powerful, instantaneous reaction – it was written so well.

I’m not worried about legacy. I don’t even know what that actually means. I don’t think anyone knows. I hope at some point in my career when my name is mentioned, someone will say “Oh yeah he has a good song!” I’d be happy with that.

My passion is doing movies, and as long as I keep doing that, I’ll be happy. I want to do movies, fun roles and dramatic ones. I love all of it.

When I was 17, my producer Rodney Jerkins was working with Michael Jackson at the time. He knew how much I wanted to meet Michael Jackson, so he says, ‘Would you like to come and meet him?’ I’m like, ‘Are you serious? Of course I want to meet Michael Jackson! Where do I meet you? Where do we come?’