People are their most beautiful when they are laughing, crying, dancing, playing, telling the truth, and being chased in a fun way.
I am introducing a new idea. Try to care less. Practice ambivalence. Learn to let go of wanting it.
I had already made a decision early on that I would be a plain girl with lots of personality, and accepting it made everything a lot easier. If you are lucky, there is a moment in your life when you have some say as to what your currency is going to be.
All of my lower-middle-class Boston issues rose to the surface. I don’t like it when bratty, privileged old white guys speak to me like I am their mouthy niece. I got that amazing feeling you get when you know you are going to lose it in the best, most self-righteous way. I just leaned back and yelled, “FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU.” Then I chased him as he tried to get away from me.
Dancing is the great equalizer. It gets people out of their heads and into their bodies. I think if you can dance and be free and not embarrassed you can rule the world.
You can only move if you are actually in the moment. You have to be where you are to get where you need to go.
Apologies have nothing to do with you. They are balloons in the sky. They may never land. They may even choke a bird.
Your career and your passion don’t always match up.
I recently hurt myself on a treadmill and it wasn’t even on. I was adjusting my speed and stepped wrong and twisted my ankle. I felt a moment of frustration filled with immediate relief. I didn’t have to actually work out, but I still got credit for trying. It was a gym snow day.
I wondered if I was just doing this as some kind of ego trip. Then I decided I didn’t care. Not enough is made of the fact that being of service makes you feel good. I think nonprofits should guarantee that giving your time and money makes your skin better and your ass smaller. Why not? There are so many people in the world with so little. Who cares why you decide to help?
Annie taught me that orphanages were a blast and being rich is the only thing that matters. Grease taught me being in a gang is nonstop fun and you need to dress sexier to have any chance of keeping a guy interested.
Someday you will wake up feeling 51 percent happy and slowly, molecule by molecule, you will feel like yourself again.
It doesn’t mean I am afraid of conflict or don’t know how to stand up for myself. I am getting to a place right in the middle where I feel good about exactly how much I apologize. It takes years as a woman to unlearn what you have been taught to be sorry for. It takes years to find your voice and seize your real estate.
Shame is difficult. It’s a weapon and a signal. It can paralyze or motivate. My friend Louis CK likes to say that “guilt is an intersection” Getting out of it means making a choice and moving forward.
Stop whining about getting old. It’s a privilege.
I didn’t really know who I was, but improv had taught me that I could be anyone. I didn’t have to wait to be cast – I could give myself the part. I could be an old man or a teenage babysitter or a rodeo clown. In three short years Chicago had taught me that I could decide who I was. My only job was to surround myself with people who respected and supported that choice. Being foolish was the smartest thing to do.
Maya Angelou said, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” I’m proud that Mike Schur and I rejected the idea that creativity needs to come from chaos. I like how we ran our writers’ room and our set. People had a great time when they came to work on our show and that mattered to us. I like to think the spirit we had on set found its way onto the show.
Bedtime is fraught with fear and disappointment. When it is just me alone with my restless body and mind, I feel like the whole world is asleep and gone. It’s very lonely. I am tired of being tired and talking about how tired I am.
Nothing is more depressing than a tired dominatrix.
Wordsworth also said that the best part of a person’s life is “his little, nameless, unremembered, acts of kindness and of love.” I.