Tina Fey
When I was really young, I loved the movie 'White Christmas' - I still do - and I thought Rosemary Clooney was so pretty. When I was, like, nine, I would tell people, 'You know who I kind of look like? Rosemary Clooney.'Collection: Christmas
I remember failing my Princeton interview. My mom wanted me to apply because ever since I was a kid she had this dream that I would apply to Princeton, but it was just not happening.Collection: Mom
I grew up in a family of Republicans. And when I was 18 and registering to vote, my mom's only instruction was 'You just go in and pull the big Republican lever.' That's my welcome to adulthood. She's like, 'No, don't even read it. Just pull the Republican lever.Collection: Family
We're all comedy fans in my family. My parents mainly wouldn't let me watch stuff that was either annoying to them, or just garbage. My dad wouldn't let us watch 'The Flintstones' if he was home, because he said it was a rip-off of 'The Honeymooners'. But he would let us stay up really late in the summer and watch old 'Honeymooners'.Collection: Dad
For my first show at 'SNL', I wrote a Bill Clinton sketch, and during our read-through, it wasn't getting any laughs. This weight of embarrassment came over me, and I felt like I was sweating from my spine out. But I realized, 'Okay, that happened, and I did not die.' You've got to experience failure to understand that you can survive it.Collection: Failure
When humor works, it works because it's clarifying what people already feel. It has to come from someplace real.Collection: Humor
Most of the time you're too busy to think about it. But every now and then you say, 'I work at 'Saturday Night Live,' and that is so cool.Collection: Cool
Being a mom has made me so tired. And so happy.Collection: Mom
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.Collection: Dating
The only way I could get comfortable around people was to make them laugh. I was an obedient girl, and humor was my one form of rebellion. I used comedy to deflect. Like, 'Hey, check out my zit!' - you know, making fun of yourself before someone else has a chance to.Collection: Humor
A Harvard Medical School study has determined that rectal thermometers are still the best way to tell a baby's temperature. Plus, it really teaches the baby who's boss.Collection: Medical
I am constantly amazed by Tina Fey. And I am Tina Fey.Collection: Amazing
Doing one movie every two years is about all I can handle 'cause, being the creator at '30 Rock', my year there starts in the middle of June and goes back around until March.
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?
The ladies of comedy now are comfortable dressing up. It's not forbidden anymore.
When I was going to school in, like, '84 to '88, you didn't have cell phones. There was no e-mail, if you can wrap your brain around that.
Twitter seems like a busman's holiday: just more writing. I have no plans to do it. I'll just stick with my 24/7 webcam. I'm old-fashioned that way.
I really love cursing a lot. But as I get older, I realize it's a little unseemly for women of a certain age.
Trying to be a leader in a sort of very atypical workplace like 'Saturday Night Live' forces you to realize that no one wants you to be their leader. If you can help them get their thing on TV or whatever, they want that. But no adult is looking for a role model.
I do like to start on time; I like to set the bar high for people.
I feel like it's harder to get women to show up for movies.
I never get to go to movies, because I'm a mom.
I'm a big fan of 'The Office', both the British and the American versions.
I want to spend time with Oprah, and I don't know what I need to do to make that happen.
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.
If you want to make an audience laugh, you dress a man up like an old lady and push her down the stairs. If you want to make comedy writers laugh, you push an actual old lady down the stairs.
I don't like my feet. I'm not crazy about anybody's feet. But I have flat feet.
I want to thank my parents for somehow raising me to have confidence that is disproportionate with my looks and abilities.
Every kid has something they're good at, that you hope they find and gravitate toward.
Someone once said that to make a regular person laugh, you need to dress a guy up like an old lady and push him down the stairs. To make a comedy writer laugh, you have to push a real old lady down the stairs. I don't know who that's attributed to. I think it's Aristophanes. Or Catherine the Great.
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.
I got a fan letter on the back of a prison menu. And I remember thinking, 'Well, they get pie. It's not so bad. They get pie on the weekends.' I want to say blueberry and also a Boston cream pie. Not so bad.
I didn't get on TV until I was 30, which is really fortunate because you are who you are at that point.
Sometimes people expect that I'm going to be tough. It's not a bad situation. People treat you better. People are on time.
I like to write about women, not so much about the way they relate to men, but about the way they relate to each other.
I like to write about women, not so much about the way they relate to men, but about the way they relate to each other. And I don't think anyone's really doing it.
After college, I knew I wanted to work in comedy, so the first thing I did was go to where the comedy was. I moved from Charlottesville to Chicago, because that's where The Second City and Improv Olympics are. You have to go wherever you need to go to study what interests you.
I really wasn't heavy in high school. But no one feels right in their own skin, particularly in high school.
I'm not a mean person, but I have a capacity for it.
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 don't enjoy any kind of danger or volatility. I don't have that kind of 'I love the bad guys' thing. No, no thank you. I like nice people.
You can point any kind of laser at my face, but I don't think Botox is for me. I think it is bad. People who have too much, they look like their faces are full of candles - a shiny, shiny face.
I think the world has too many actresses.
I think everyone's intentions are to become a performer at first. But by the time I was in high school and college, I discovered that I liked writing and that I was probably a little better at it.
I still want Oprah to play my best friend. I want to spend time with Oprah.
I was a very confident little kid.
I don't like a tremendous amount of conflict. I don't think that fighting and passion are the same thing.
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.
Even when I was at 'SNL,' I didn't do impersonations. I always wanted to be the kind of person who could do them - I always thought they were the coolest thing on the show - but I didn't have any experience.
An interim government was set up in Afghanistan. It included two women, one of whom was Minister of Women's Affairs. Man, who'd she have to show her ankles to to get that job?