Tina Fey

“Trying to Enjoy It (Proceed as if You Look Awesome)...This requires a level of delusion/egomania usually reserved for popes and drag queens, but you can do it. It's like being a little kid again, parading around in a nightgown tucked into your underpants, believing it looks terrific. Your "right mind" knows that you look ridiculous in a half-open dress and giant shoes, but you must put yourself back in third grade, slipping on your mom's quilted caftan and drinking cream soda out of a champagne glass while watching The Love Boat. You have never been more glamorous.”

“It’s the same reason I don’t get Hooters. Why do we need to enjoy chicken wings and boobies at the same time? Yes, they are a natural and beautiful part of the human experience. And so are boobies. But why at the same time?”

“Am I just chasing it because it's the hardest thing for me to get and I want to prove I can do it?”

“In an attempt to make things easier for myself, which is the basis for all of history's worst decisions [...].”

“When people say, 'You really, really must" do something, it means you don't really have to. [...] When it's true, it doesn't need to be said.”

“In real life these women experienced different sides of the same sexism coin. People who didn't like Hillary called her a ballbuster. People who didn't like Sarah called her Caribou Barbie. People attempted to marginalize these women based on their gender.”

“In my limited experience, shows are like children. You can teach them manners and dress them in little sailor suits, but in the end, they're going to be who they're going to be.”

“Tracy: Stop eating people's old french fries, little pigeon. Have some self-respect. Don't you know you can fly?”

“Amy Poehler was new to SNL and we were all crowded into the seventeenth-floor writers' room, waiting for the Wednesday night read-through to start. [...] Amy was in the middle of some such nonsense with Seth Meyers across the table, and she did something vulgar as a joke. I can't remember what it was exactly, except it was dirty and loud and "unladylike", Jimmy Fallon [...] turned to her and in a faux-squeamish voice said, "Stop that! It's not cute! I don't like it."Amy dropped what she was doing, went black in the eyes for a second, and wheeled around on him. "I don't fucking care if you like it." Jimmy was visibly startled. Amy went right back to enjoying her ridiculous bit.With that exchange, a cosmic shift took place. Amy made it clear that she wasn't there to be cute. She wasn't there to play wives and girlfriends in the boys' scenes. She was there to do what she wanted to do and she did not fucking care if you like it.”

“In other words: Whatever the problem, be part of the solution. Don't just sit around raising questions and pointing out obstacles.”

“That's the main thing I learned in that job - how to be a considerate coworker. Cover the phones for someone so they can pee. Punch someone's time card in for them after lunch so they can stop and buy a birthday card. Help people when their register doesn't add up. Don't be a tattletale.”

“When I was a kid there was a TV interstitial during Saturday morning cartoons with a song that went like this: "The most important person in the whole wide world is you, and you hardly even know you. / You're the most important person!" Is this not the absolute worst thing you could instill in a child? They're the most important person? In the world? That's what they already think. You need to teach them the opposite.”

“They had a place where they belonged, and, even if it was because he didn't want to deal with their being different, he didn't treat them any differently. Which I think is a pretty successful implementation of Christianity.”

“Seriously, I've just realized that almost everyone is a fraud, so I try not to feel too bad about it.”

“Bitch get stuff done”

“Now every girl is expected to have Caucasian blue eyes, full Spanish lips, a classic button nose, hairless Asian skin with a California tan, a Jamaican dance hall ass, long Swedish legs, small Japanese feet, the abs of a lesbian gym owner, the hips of a nine-year-old boy, the arms of Michelle Obama, and doll tits. The person closest to actually achieving this look is Kim Kardashian, who, as we know, was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes.”

“It was a major and deeply embarrassing teenage revelation. It must be how straight teenage boys feel when they realize those boobs they like have heads attached to them.”

“It can’t be said enough. Don’t concern yourself with fashion; stick to simple pieces that flatter your body type. By nineteen, I had found my look. Oversize T-shirts, bike shorts, and wrestling shoes. To prevent the silhouette from being too baggy, I would cinch it at the waist with my fanny pack. I was pretty sure I would wear this look forever. The shirts allowed me to express myself with cool sayings like “There’s No Crying in Baseball” and “Universität Heidelberg,” the bike shorts showed off my muscular legs, and the fanny pack held all my trolley tokens. I was nailing it on a daily basis. Find something like this for yourself as soon as possible.”

“If you are a woman and you bought this book for practical tips on how to make it in a male-dominated workplace, here they are. No pigtails, no tube tops. Cry sparingly. (Some people say “Never let them see you cry.” I say, if you’re so mad you could just cry, then cry. It terrifies everyone.)”

“That night's show was watched by ten million people, so I guess that director at The Second City who said the audience "didn't want to see a sketch with two women" can go shit in his hat.”

“This is one of the weird things about motherhood. You can predict that some of your best moments will happen around the toilet at six am while you're holding a pile of fingernail clipping like a Santeria priestess.”

“How do you juggle it all' people constantly ask me, with an accusatory look in their eyes. 'You're fucking it all up, aren't you' their eyes say.”

“Why can't we accept the human form as it is?" screams no one. I don't know why, but we never have. That's why people wore corsets and neck stretchers and powdered wigs.”

“To this day, all I know is there are between two and four openings down there and that the set up inside looks vaguely like the Texas Longhorns logo.”

“Now if you're not „hot”, you are expected to work on it until you are. It's like when you renovate a house and you're legally required to leave just one of the original walls standing. If you don't have a good body you have down to a neutral shape, then bolt on some breast implants, replace your teeth, dye you hair, and call yourself the Playmate of the Year. How do we survive this? How do we teach our daughters and our gay sons that they are good enough the way they are? We have to lead by example.”

“Maybe it’s seventy years in the future and you found this book in a stack of junk being used to block the entrance of an abandoned Starbucks that is now a feeding station for the alien militia. If that’s the case, I have some questions for you. Such as: “Did we really ruin the environment as much as we thought?” and “Is Glee still a thing?”

“Thomas Jefferson - another gorgeous white boy who would not have been interested in me.”

“The eyes are the window to where the soul is supposed to be.”

“I want to go to there.”

“How can I give her what Don Fey gave me? The gift of anxiety. The fear of getting in trouble. The knowledge that while you are loved, you are not above the law. The Worldwide Parental Anxiety System is failing if this many of us have made sex tapes”

“You can tell how smart people are by what they laugh at.”

“Do I worry about overly retouched photos giving women unrealistic expectations and body image issues? I do. I think that we will soon see a rise in anorexia in women over seventy. Because only people over seventy are fooled by Photoshop. Only your great-aunt forwards you an image of Sarah Palin holding a rifle and wearing an American-flag bikini and thinks it’s real. Only your uncle Vic sends a photo of Barack Obama wearing a hammer and sickle T-shirt and has to have it explained to him that somebody faked that with the computer.”

“Kay Cannon was a woman I’d known from the Chicago improv world. A beautiful, strong midwestern gal who had played lots of sports and run track in college, Kay had submitted a good writing sample, but I was more impressed by her athlete’s approach to the world. She has a can-do attitude, a willingness to learn through practice, and she was comfortable being coached. Her success at the show is a testament to why all parents should make their daughters pursue team sports instead of pageants. Not that Kay couldn’t win a beauty pageant - she could, as long as for the talent competition she could sing a karaoke version of ‘Redneck Woman’ while shooting a Nerf rifle.”

“If you're going to expend energy being mad about Photoshop, you'll also have to be mad about earrings. No one's ears are that sparkly!”

“Sometimes if you have a difficult decisin to make, just stall until the answer presents itself.”

“ask yourself the following question: "Is this person in between me and what I want to do?" If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing work and outpacing people that way.”

“To me YEs, AND means don't be afraid to contribute. It's your responsibility to contribute. Always make sure you're adding something to the discussion. Your initiations are worthwhile.”

“Sometimes it is a fun sociology litmus test, like when my friend Ricky asked me, 'Did they ever catch the black guy that did that to you?' Hmmm. It was not a black guy, Ricky, and I never said it was.”

“We are a society that constantly celebrates no one but women and it must stop! I want to hear what the men of the world have been up to. What fun new guns have they invented? What are they raping these days? What’s Michael Bay’s next film going to be?”

“Feminists do the best Photoshop because they leave the meat on your bones. They don’t change your size or your skin color. They leave in your disgusting knuckles, but they may take out some armpit stubble. Not because they’re denying its existence, but because they understand that it’s okay to make a photo look as if you were caught on your best day in the best light.”

“This requires a level of delusion/egomania usually reserved for popes and drag queens”

“Amy [Poehler] made it clear that she wasn’t there to be cute. She wasn’t there to play wives and girlfriends in the boys’ scenes. She was there to do what she wanted to do and she did not fucking care if you like it.”

“I went back outside and manually released my butt cheeks.”

“...nothing is creepier than a bunch of adults being very quiet.”

“...you can almost hear people’s b-holes tighten. A collective cartoon-mouse squeak of b-hole.”

“...the music seems creepy, like when children sing in a horror movie”

“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.”

“Whatever the problem, be part of the solution. Don’t just sit around raising questions and pointing out obstacles.”

“...the Rule of Agreement reminds you to “respect what your partner has created” and to at least start from an open-minded place. Start with a YES and see where that takes you.”

“...my electric-blue-suitmate was an uninhibited vagina about town.”