Tina Fey

When I was going to school in, like, ’84 to ’88, you didn’t have cell phones. There was no e-mail, if you can wrap your brain around that.

I like to write about women, not so much about the way they relate to men, but about the way they relate to each other.

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 think I’m brave about some things and a huge coward in other ways. My fake bravery is talking in front of a bunch of people who might hate it.

We’re all comedy fans in my family. My parents mainly wouldn’t let me watch stuff that was either annoying to them, or just garbage. My dad wouldn’t let us watch ‘The Flintstones’ if he was home, because he said it was a rip-off of ‘The Honeymooners’. But he would let us stay up really late in the summer and watch old ‘Honeymooners’.

I really admire stand-up, and I think I would have loved to learn how to do it. I think it’s terrifying and thrilling. A really cool thing to do. It’s a dying art, in a way.

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.

They made a porn movie about Sarah Palin, and the same actress, Lisa Ann, played me in the porn version of 30 Rock. Weirdly, of the three of us, Lisa Ann knows the most about foreign policy.

A lot of actresses start out modeling because it’s a great way to sort of get your foot in the door. That’s all it is, though. They open the door, and you have to walk through it.

When was the last time you saw a musical about people at war with each other?

I’ve got a terrible memory – I end up repeating myself quite a lot. The only thing I can remember is that I’m going to repeat myself!

I didn’t think my career would last this long, and it’s still going.

I don’t think these women are stupid. I think they’re selling a personality that’s very marketable: Wouldn’t it be fun if we were all gorgeous and didn’t have a care? But creating a cultural icon out of someone who goes, “I’m stupid, isn’t it cute?” makes me want to throw daggers at them! I want to say to them, “My grandma did not fight for what she fought for, and my mother did not fight for what she fought for, so you can start telling women it’s fun to be stupid.” Saying that to young women, little girls, my daughter? It’s not OK.

This is going to sound really funny. I have a poster of Zac Efron on my wall! I think every girl has a poster of him in their room so, why not join the club!

When humor works, it works because it’s clarifying what people already feel. It has to come from someplace real.

Lately, I’m spending more and more time working with non-rock musicians and leaving the mainstream – almost dissolving into another world, musically.

We don’t want to be influenced, just informed.

I’d make a better U.S. President than George W. Bush. Bush is an idiot. I’m a better public speaker than him. It makes you wonder about the voters.

Sometimes we have criticism that is very constructive.

The girly movie I secretly love is Pippy Longstockings.

Fame for fame’s sake is a completely empty experience. Fame should be a by-product (and not necessarily a good one) of achieving something extraordinary.