Tina Fey

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.

I was a little excited but mostly blorft. ‘Blorft’ is an adjective I just made up that means ‘Completely overwhelmed but proceeding as if everything is fine and reacting to the stress with the torpor of a possum.’ I have been blorft every day for the past seven years.

I don’t like a tremendous amount of conflict. I don’t think that fighting and passion are the same thing.

By the way, when Oprah Winfrey is suggesting you may have overextended yourself, you need to examine your f**ing life.

I’ll be ready for it to happen and that way it won’t happen. It’s a burden, being able to control situations with my hyper-vigilance, but it’s my lot in life.

What turning forty means to me- I need to take my pants off as soon as I get home. I didn’t used to have to do that, but now I do.

I always dream about other musicians. And they’re never interested in hanging out with us. It’s like being at school and the bigger boys don’t want to play with you!

I don’t think I’m very much like anyone else, really. I’m sure there are aspects of other actors that I share, but I don’t see anybody else and go, “Damn, they stole my thing”. I’m me, and I like that there are people who have an appreciation for that.

Everybody was recording Laura Nyro’s songs and all of a sudden she was a very successful song-writer. And beginning to become hot. She had three songs in the top ten at one time…

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.

We often read transcripts of Trump’s speeches, and it’s something that everyone should actually do once in a while. When you strip away his blindingly confident delivery and just read his words, it is staggering how incoherent he is.

I guess you can get to a level where you choose. I guess when you reach that point maybe you start making decisions about whether you want to be a leading man or woman. I’m not at that point at all. Where I am now, you’re very much at everybody else’s mercy. You have no control over your career in a lot of ways. It’s just important to know what your own goals are, because that’s empowering.

Well I always wanted to be Dolly Parton when I was a little girl. I was obsessed with her.

Do you know how many women get systematically blackballed out of their positions in an office building and can’t fight back?

I have three other siblings, so it’s all very equal – even when I get a little cocky, which I usually do. My brother keeps me in a headlock. He says that I’m not a celebrity in this house.

I can’t say I was. I wasn’t not a (Harry Porter) fan. I hadn’t read any of the books or anything. I read The Goblet of Fire when I was doing the other film, and I really liked that. I got through it in about two days. I’d say I’m a pretty big fan now.

No one leaves voicemails anymore they just text now so it’s a different time.

[on choosing films she will be in] I have a weird process, but the main thing is like this: I hear her voice in my head. There are a lot of wonderful scripts my agents can’t believe I pass on, but I do because I can’t hear the voice. It doesn’t appeal to me then. I’m really careful. Unless I hear the voice, I can’t do it.

When I’m playing a character, I use the American accent. But when I go back to England, I just glide right back into Englishness immediately. Every actor uses a dialect coach. Every actor, and if they say they don’t, they’re lying. Everybody does, yeah. You don’t want to worry about it. You have someone listening out to check that you’re not straying.

[on the movie business] The battles that we face in this business aren’t financial, but they are moral. And I certainly think that the longer you can keep your values, and your morality intact, and keep your head on your shoulders about what is important at the end of the day, you can get the most out of this business and really emerge with something wonderful.

I’ll be a nun, raise my daughter, and make albums.