Tig Notaro
I always think about the idea that God never gives you more than you can handle, and just the idea that God would be looking at me and thinking, 'Eh, I think she can handle more.' And the angels thinking, 'What are you doing? You're a lunatic.' And God being like, 'No, no, trust me. She can handle this.'Collection: Trust
You can think you're living in the moment and you're thankful, but when somebody comes face to face with you and says, 'I just lost my child,' or 'I have months to live, and thank you...' I'm of course sad for them, but I'm thankful that I gave them a gift and they're giving me a gift.Collection: Thankful
When I've had to edit my albums, I'll listen to it one time through, and I'll make edits. I want to remember to set up a camera to record myself listening to my set, because I don't even slightly crack a smile, I am just listening for technical details, and I look like somebody that has absolutely no sense of humor. I look insane.Collection: Smile
The funny response to 'One Mississippi' continues to be that people don't know what is true and what's fiction.Collection: Funny
I failed eighth grade twice, and then they moved me up to ninth grade. Then I failed that and dropped out. My teacher would hand me a test, and I'd grade it myself with an F, then put my head down on the desk.Collection: Teacher
It was a free-for-all with music when I was growing up. My mother was a huge music fanatic so I was listening to everything from country to heavy metal to Indigo Girls to Elton John. I guess when I was really young I didn't like Willie Nelson, and she obviously loved him. Now I do too, I'm so thankful to her for playing his music nonstop.Collection: Thankful
I get kind of, um, bored by all the sexuality and gender labels because I feel like that's where the problem comes in, when people feel that they need to have these particular identities. If you didn't have these labels, and you just acted on how you genuinely felt at any point, then you wouldn't have anything to contend with.
I'm not a religious person; I'm not even, like, a spiritual person.
I was very into animals and nature, and really obsessed with cats and monkeys. I used to play in the woods, wander off into the woods for hours. I'd bring a clipboard and think that I was doing some work out there, following the trails of raccoons or collecting bird feathers.
Even in losing my mother, beautiful, amazing awakenings have happened within my family. Of course, losing her is not what you want. The things that happened after her death, she would be so just beside herself with joy that life turned out that way.
Before I had a double mastectomy, I was already pretty flat-chested, and I made so many jokes over the years about how small my chest was that I started to think that maybe my boobs overheard me... and were just like, 'You know what? We're sick of this. Let's kill her.'
As a kid, I loved Paula Poundstone and Richard Pryor. But my mother was a huge influence on my comedy.
I feel like I am the most hopeful person you could possibly meet.
It's almost embarrassing how much support I have. I mean, I always tell people I feel like I'm perfectly set up to have cancer. I have great health insurance, I have a savings account. I have work lined up. I have friends and family. I have the best doctors I can get.
I didn't like to stop playing for a second to bother with eating or going to the bathroom. I was a really skinny kid, and I remember my mother always telling people, 'I don't know how she's alive. I think she gets all of her nutrients from air pollution.'
I have somebody I admire and want to keep at a distance. I've had the opportunity to meet her a couple of times - it's Chrissie Hynde from The Pretenders. I just am nuts about her, but I have no interest in meeting her because I just don't think she could live up to what she's been to me in my head.
Not many people have had as much bad luck as I have, but not many people have had as much good luck, either.
My favorite thing to wear from about first to third grade was a blue t-shirt with an iron-on monkey and the caption 'Here Comes Trouble.'
I want to be silly, and that's being authentic just as much as being open and honest. It's authentic to make weird clown horn noises when it strikes you.
Comedy was a secret want, but it wasn't anything I pursued.
I'm always going to do whatever I think is funniest. If something's dark, I'll do it.
My career has always kind of moved forward and upward. I've never had anything kind of stall out or go in the opposite direction. I've always kind of been moving in the right direction.
Basically I'm a female human being with brown hair, enjoy precision, reading the news, eating delicious food with my delicious friends and laughing at ridiculous things that don't translate while you are desperately trying to make them.
I love devastating movies, documentaries and hummingbirds (yes, in that order).
I'm fascinated by caddy Buddhists popping up all over Hollywood and people that take themselves too seriously.
Reminding myself that I have a tailbone keeps me in check.
One of my favorite songs is 'Ghost' by Indigo Girls. Emily Saliers wrote that, and she is one of the most talented songwriters ever.
My mother was so stylish, but she never pushed that on me. She always thought I looked cool.
People complain about Hollywood comedians, but I feel like I selected a tremendous group, ones who aren't fame-obsessed.
A lot of comedians get a bad rep once they have kids and that's all they talk about, and people are like, 'I don't want to hear about your kids!' I'm like, 'Prepare yourselves. That's all I'm going to talk about.'
I don't thrive on misery myself. I mean, I've obviously created during a time of misery, but I also create from a place of joy.
When I was first asked for an autograph, I felt so uncomfortable that I just wrote, 'Tig's Autograph,' and from then on, that's what I write when I sign my name.
My mother was a very, very funny, outrageous, outspoken person, and she never edited me. Her whole thing in my life was if anybody had a problem with me, tell them to go to hell.
I got my first guitar when I was nine because I wanted to be the fifth Beatle, even though they had already broken up and John Lennon died that year.
Luckily, I'm not a gambler or a drinker or - you know, I get my fix of comedy.
People love to make comedians out to be miserable, dark, twisted people. And I just - I think a lot of people struggle with depression and mental illness and have issues and problems within their family. The mailman has it. Your neighbor has it. It's just that comedians have a microphone.
In standup, you don't have anything near you except a microphone. There's something a lot more self-conscious feeling when there's cameras coming in for close-ups. It makes you very aware.
Life can very genuinely and realistically pile things on. It doesn't dole out the heartache and pain, or joy, perfectly.
My mom was a freethinking artist - she was wild and would do anything to get a laugh from me. She'd go in reverse through a drive-through so I could order from the window: 'Hi, can I get a milk shake?'
After 2012, I thought, 'Oh wow, I've lived through this, and now I have a free ride in life.' And I can't believe I really thought that. As soon as I was healed from cancer and everything I was going through, I got back out into life and realized it doesn't work out like that.
I don't talk about having cancer in my standup anymore. I don't have cancer. But if it comes up for me again, that I'm going through something, I'm going to talk about it. I'm going to do whatever feels right whenever it feels right.
People write me every day. It feels like this cycle that keeps giving, because as far along as I get in my happiness and success, hearing other people's stories is a constant reminder of where I came from, where people are, and how much help everybody still needs.
I think that people are going to think of me however they want to think of me, whether it's female or gay or cancer or funny or unfunny.
I just try not to think too much about how I'm perceived. I think as long as I'm still selling tickets and can pay my mortgage, then people are probably thinking good enough things or whatever about me to keep the train moving.
I don't want to take myself too seriously, thinking that I'm always having to be this cathartic, intense and deep person, because I certainly enjoy silliness.
I want people to talk about my comedy, about cancer, about body issues, about scars, because cancer, it's a big deal, but scars are not a big deal. My skin healed. Relax, you know? That's all it is.
A lot of times, people will have after-parties or try and host an event for comedians, and they misunderstand us. They think it should be wild and crazy, or loud music, and comedians are typically pretty mellow people that just want to talk to each other.
It attracts all types. But I definitely call the comedy world the land of misfit toys. Looking around the room at my friends, that's what I see.
I was a full-blown tomboy; I was very mischievous and got into a lot of trouble. Everybody in my family smoked, and I started smoking probably when I was nine. My friends used to call me Huckleberry Tig.
I can't help but see things in life through a humorous lens, so anything that comes my way is gonna probably be, you know, bent in that direction.