Tina Fey

I don’t want to be somebody else.

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.

No other formula gives your baby a better start at life except that stuff that comes out of you for free.

If you ever start to feel too good about yourself, they have this thing called the Internet, and you can find a lot of people there who don’t like you.

Because we were raised around art and went to museums and the women I grew up around were curvy…there wasn’t this value on skinny, skinny, skinny. Curvy was clearly meant to be the winner. I go up and down a few pounds with a relative amount of kindness to myself. And I have a daughter, and I don’t want her to waste her time on all of that.

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.

When you’re acting, you’re a character and you can hide behind that. Music is who you are right then and there – you can’t hide.

There’s nothing I really wanted to do in life that I wasn’t able to get good at. That’s my skill. I’m not really specifically talented at anything except for the ability to learn. That’s what I do. That’s what I’m here for.

They (Barnes Theatre Club) were a very good group, and for some reason when I finished the backstage thing, I just decided to that I should try to act. So I auditioned for Guys and Dolls and got a little tiny part as some Cuban dancer or something and then in the next play I got the lead part, and then I got my agent. So I owe everything to that little club.

I like to delude myself that I’m in the old-Hollywood mode. I just tailor my clothes well and try to keep my skin clear. While it would be great to work out an hour a day, there is something inherently sort of selfish about it. I can’t do it.

D.C. went under federal control in 1801 and it wasn’t until the 1960s that D.C.’s then three quarters of a million citizens, mostly African American, were given even the most basic electoral rights … With that level of restriction the mayor of D.C. gets to run the city the way a school council president gets to run her high school.

I was the editor of the school newspaper and in drama club and choir, so I was not a popular girl in the traditional sense, but I think I was known for being relatively scathing.

When I’m alone, I can sleep crossways in bed without an argument.

Attending an all-girls school has its advantages, there are no inhibitions. You can walk to school with your zit cream on and your hair in rollers and nobody cares.

If there was no ladies, I wouldn’t wanna be on the planet. Ladies, friends, and music – without those three, I wouldn’t wanna be here.

When humor works, it works because it’s clarifying what people already feel. It has to come from someplace real. You don’t just decide to destroy a person by making up stuff, and no one at SNL is writing to go after someone.

It’s OK to quote from your past. But I’m more interested in quoting from my present and pointing towards the future.

When I first started racing, my father said, “Win the race as slow as you can.

I’m a restless guy who’s happy to be restless. I find that I’m always inquiring and I’m always in the middle of new situations. It’s just life experience, I guess. But I’ve been around quite a while.

My favourite part [of Pulp Fiction] is when Sam has his gun out in the diner and he tells the guy to tell his girlfriend to shut up. ‘Tell that bitch to be cool. Say: Bitch be cool.’ I love those lines.

Confidence is everything in this business.