A wise friend once told me, ‘Don’t wear what fashion designers tell you to wear. Wear what they wear.’
Only in comedy, by the way, does an obedient white girl from the suburbs count as diversity.
Don’t be too precious or attached to anything you write. Let things be malleable. For sketch writers, remember they’re called sketches for a reason. They’re not called oil paintings. Some of them are going to stink. You have to let them stink.
We’re gonna promote freedom. Usher in democratic values and ideals. And fight terror-loving terrorists.
I never dreamed I would receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, mostly because my style is so typically Austrian.
I think for women especially, you need to have a plan. I need to have some other ways to generate income, so I don’t have to stretch my face or lift the top of my head with surgery or something.
Every day I wrote in my journal: “How am I going to win today?” So that when the guys are talking about water-boarding I’m telling them they haven’t even got the right towels.
I have to say, I’m really not that attractive. Until I met my husband, I could not get a date.
Your characters should be as smart as you are, if not smarter.
Whenever you see me, I’m on antique quaaludes.
Politics and prostitution have to be the only jobs where inexperience is considered a virtue.
Sleep when your baby sleeps. Everyone knows this classic tip, but I say why stop there? Scream when your baby screams. Take Benadryl when your baby takes Benadryl. And walk around pantless when your baby walks around pantless.
When I turned 50, I looked in the mirror and I thought: “Hey, this isn’t the dress rehearsal, this is life and I don’t know how much longer I’m going to have!”
My favorite day at ‘30 Rock’ is Thursday when the show airs. At lunch, we screen the episodes. For everyone to watch together, to see the stuff we all worked on, to hear the crew laugh – it’s great fun.
Mary Tyler Moore was a working woman whose story lines were not always about dating and men. They were about work friendships and relationships, which is what I feel my adult life has mostly been about.
If you’re an actor and you don’t get cast in stuff a lot, then put together a show or hold play-reading nights at your apartment. Make your own opportunities.
I think part of picking where you live in New York is accepting who you are. Really looking at yourself and going, ‘Yeah, I’m not cool enough for the West Village.’
I think my level of fame will drop back down. I think it’ll recede. In fact, I know it will. That’s life on Planet Earth. And I’m okay with that. Besides getting tables at restaurants and special treatment at the airport, what else is there?
I went through a phase where I was sick of acting, I didn’t want to do it anymore, I was bored with it and then I tried directing a movie and I was like: “Shoot, get back over there!” It made me appreciate acting more.
I really admire stand-up, and I think I would have loved to learn how to do it. I think it’s terrifying and thrilling. A really cool thing to do. It’s a dying art, in a way.