Tina Fey

I dreamed of being an actress when I was a little kid because you don’t know then that the writer writes everything the actor is saying. But as I got older, I got into college and became more aware that writing is another option, and I started getting into it, too.

If you want to make an audience laugh, you dress a man up like an old lady and push her down the stairs. If you want to make comedy writers laugh, you push an actual old lady down the stairs.

Most of the time you’re too busy to think about it. But every now and then you say, ‘I work at ‘Saturday Night Live ‘ and that is so cool.

In an interview, Paris Hilton said that of her and her sister, ‘People love to hate us. But when you know us, you love us. And if you really get to know us, you get gonorrhea’.

I like to crack the jokes now and again, but it’s only because I struggle with math.

I want to spend time with Oprah, and I don’t know what I need to do to make that happen.

I think, really, what it was was that I was raised in a very gray Britain in the 1950s. We were pummeled during the war. A lot of our cities were wrecked and smashed up and as we came out of that, we were baby boomers there; we didn’t have the candy apple red; we didn’t have the big chrome decals; we didn’t have Elvis. So what we did, we came out ferocious. We came out kicking and spitting and it was a reaction to the gray and depletion of our islands….

Oh God, don’t make me come across as a moaner. I think it’s unacceptable to moan about anything when you’re lucky enough to do what I do. What I’m trying to say is I’m more settled now. The thirties have calmed me down. I know who my real friends are, I know what I want to do. In your twenties, you just do everything. It’s just overload all the time. In the thirties, you learn that it’s OK to go to bed early if you want.

Don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions; go over, under, through, and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? Do your thing, and don’t care if they like it.

You shouldn’t throw stones if you live in a glass house and if you got a glass jaw, you should watch yo mouth: cause I’ll break yo face.

You have to learn that if you start making sure you feel good, everything will be okay.

Make Statements also applies to us women: Speak in statements instead of apologetic questions. No one wants to go to a doctor who says, “I’m going to be your surgeon? I’m here to talk to you about your procedure? I was first in my class at Johns Hopkins, so?” Make statements, with your actions and your voice.

Sick of all these people talking, sick of all this noise. Tired of all these cameras flashing, sick of being poised.

I love you like a fat kid loves cake.

What good are fans? You can’t eat applause for breakfast. You can’t sleep with it.

A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.

We are trying to communicate a fulfilled ideal. Does anybody remember laughter?

I’m very outspoken. I will ask a silly question, but I really am deadly serious. I want to know the answer.

I don’t want to wear high heels because I can’t run around with my son. So, for real life, I like to be in jeans and nice-cut shirts. I appreciate good tailoring.

Ryan and I didn’t grow up like this at all, with this much attention. We’ll just try to keep their feet on the ground and raise them with the values we were raised with.

It’s just such a tangled-up issue, the way women present themselves [in comedy]-whether or not they choose to put their thumbs in their panties on the cover of Maxim and judge each other back and forth on it. It’s a complicated issue, and we didn’t go much further on saying anything other than to say, ‘Yeah, it’s a complicated issue and we’re all kind of figuring it out as we go.’