Tina Fey

I feel about Photoshop the way some people feel about abortion. It is appalling and a tragic reflection on the moral decay of our society…unless I need it, in which case, everybody be cool.

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.

The only reward for anything is food.

I feel like I represent normalcy in some way.

Gay people don’t actually try to convert people. That’s Jehovah’s Witnesses you’re thinking of.

[While Amy Poehler and I were doing press for Sisters,] every single interviewer asked, ‘Isn’t this an amazing time for women in comedy?’ People really wanted us to be openly grateful-‘Thank you so much!’-and we were like, ‘No, it’s a terrible time. If you were to really look at it, the boys are still getting more money for a lot of garbage, while the ladies are hustling and doing amazing work for less.’

The celebrity thing… I don’t want to sound as if I absolutely don’t want it because that’s not true. If you’re in the entertainment business, you have to be honest. There’s something alluring about it…

You have to let people see what you wrote. It will never be perfect, but perfect is overrated. Perfect is boring.

Student debt is like HPV – if you go to college, you are most likely to get it, and it will follow you for the rest of your life.

I went up to his [Hank Jones’] house and there were four guys there: Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, and Max Roach. Not a bad place to be. Scared shitless, but a nice place to be on my second day in New York.

You can’t even imagine how it felt to have a cassette that you could take with you with a microphone so you could put down an idea and not have to hum it a million times to remember what it was.

I’m pleased with how ridiculous I am. I like me. Though I’m not a huge fan. I know when to switch me off.

I just feel my sexuality is private. I’m very shy about being sexy. That part of me has been so closed to the public eye. I’ve sold millions of records with my clothes on.

I’ve sort of heard that “it” girl thing, but not really. Hearing it from a few people doesn’t solidify it in my mind and I wouldn’t know how to solidify that title. It’s so elusive and what does it mean, I don’t know?

I really like comedy that brings people together. There’s a lot of comedies lately that have been at people’s expense or been kind of acidic or mean-spirited. And some folks like that, and I think there’s room for that, but that’s not my style. I like something that makes us all feel closer. Comedy, at its best, can be healing.

[on acting] Sometimes I think, ‘To hell with acting’ and then I realize I could be working at a shoe shop. Acting is much cooler.

Donald Trump has been saying that he will run for president as a Republican, which is surprising since I just assumed he was running as a joke.

[On encountering the music of Umm Kulthum] I was intrigued by the scales, initially, and obviously the vocal work. The way she sang, the way she could hold a note, you could feel the tension, you could tell that everybody, the whole orchestra, would hold a note until she wanted to change.

Anything where we’re the butt of the joke, no one tells us about it.

People don’t have to like or support you, so you always have to say thank you.

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