Tina Fey Quotes

By the way, when Oprah Winfrey is suggesting you may have overextended yourself, you need to examine your fucking life.

~ Tina Fey

Don't waste your energy trying to change opinions ... Do your thing, and don't care if they like it.

~ Tina Fey

Do your thing and don't care if they like it.

~ Tina Fey

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.

~ Tina Fey

I was a little excited but mostly blorft. Blorft is an adjective I just made up that means 'Completely overwhelmed but proceeding as if everything is fine and reacting to the stress with the torpor of a possum.' I have been blorft every day for the past seven years.

~ Tina Fey

I feel about Photoshop the way some people feel about abortion. It is appalling and a tragic reflection on the moral decay of our society…unless I need it, in which case, everybody be cool.

~ Tina Fey

Whitney Houston’s cover of “I Will Always Love You” was constantly on my FM Walkman radio around that time. I think that made me cry because I associated it with absolutely no one.

~ Tina Fey

Most photographers have some kind of verbal patter going on when they shoot: Great. Turn to me. Big smile. Less shark eyes. Have fun with it. Not like that. Some photographers are compulsively effusive. Beautiful. Amazing. Gorgeous! Ugh, so gorgeous! they yell at shutter speed. If you are anything less than insane, you will realize this is not sincere. It's hard to take because it's more positive feedback than you've received in your entire life thrown at you in fifteen seconds. It would be like going jogging while someone rode next to you in a slow-moving car, yelling, Yes! You are Carl Lewis! You're breaking a world record right now. Amazing! You are fast. You're going very fast, yes!

~ Tina Fey

Politics and prostitution have to be the only jobs where inexperience is considered a virtue. In what other profession would you brag about not knowing stuff? “I’m not one of those fancy Harvard heart surgeons. I’m just an unlicensed plumber with a dream and I’d like to cut your chest open.” The crowd cheers.

~ Tina Fey

My parents raised me that you never ask people about their reproductive plans. “You don’t know their situation,” my mom would say. I considered it such an impolite question that for years I didn’t even ask myself. Thirty-five turned into forty faster than McDonald’s food turns into cold nonfood.

~ Tina Fey

And, you know, politics aside, the success of Sarah Palin and women like her is good for all women - except, of course —those who will end up, you know, like, paying for their own rape ‘kit ‘n’ stuff, But for everybody else, it’s a win-win. Unless you’re a gay woman who wants to marry your partner of 20 years - whatever. But for most women, the success of conservative women is good for all of us. Unless you believe in evolution. You know - actually, I take it back. The whole thing’s a disaster.

~ Tina Fey

[T]he definition of 'crazy' in show business is a woman who keeps talking even after no one wants to fuck her anymore.

~ Tina Fey

...Whenever someone says to me, 'Jerry Lewis says women aren't funny,' or 'Christopher Hitchens says women aren't funny,' or 'Rick Fenderman says women aren't funny... Do you have anything to say to that?'Yes. We don't fucking care if you like it.I don't say it out loud, of course, because Jerry Lewis is a great philanthropist, Hitchens is very sick, and the third guy I made up.

~ Tina Fey

Don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions; go over, under, through, and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? Do your thing, and don’t care if they like it.

~ Tina Fey

Ever since I became an executive producer of 30 Rock, people have asked me, 'Is it hard for you, being the boss?' And, 'Is it uncomfortable for you to be the person in charge?' You know, in that same way they say, 'Gosh, Mr. Trump, is it awkward for you to be the boss of all these people?

~ Tina Fey

In most cases being a good boss means hiring talented people and then getting out of their way.

~ Tina Fey

Don't hire anyone you wouldn't want to run into in the hallway at three in the morning.

~ Tina Fey

My dad looks like Clint Eastwood. His half-Scottish, half-German face in repose is handsome but terrifying. I searched the audience for him during the sixth-grade chorus concert and, seeing his stern expression, was convinced that he had seen me messing up the words to the Happy Days theme and that I was in big trouble. I spent the rest of the concert suppressing terror bumps, only to be given a big hug and a kiss afterward. It took me years to realize, Oh, that's just his face.

~ Tina Fey

When did you first feel like a grown woman and not a girl?” We wrote down our answers and shared them, first in pairs, then in larger groups. The group of women was racially and economically diverse, but the answers had a very similar theme. Almost everyone first realized they were becoming a grown woman when some dude did something nasty to them. “I was walking home from ballet and a guy in a car yelled, ‘Lick me!’” “I was babysitting my younger cousins when a guy drove by and yelled, ‘Nice ass.’” There were pretty much zero examples like “I first knew I was a woman when my mother and father took me out to dinner to celebrate my success on the debate team.” It was mostly men yelling shit from cars. Are they a patrol sent out to let girls know they’ve crossed into puberty? If so, it’s working.

~ Tina Fey

Anytime there's a bad female stand-up somewhere, some dickhead Interblogger will deduce that “women aren't funny.” Using that same math, I can state: Male comedy writers piss in cups.

~ Tina Fey

You all watched a sketch about feminism and you didn't even know it because of all the jokes. It's like when Jessica Seinfeld puts spinach in kids' brownies. Suckers!

~ Tina Fey

My unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism or ageism or lookism or even really aggressive Buddhism, 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 your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you’re in charge, don’t hire the people who were jerky to you. If the answer is yes, you have a more difficult road ahead of you. I suggest you model your strategy after the old Sesame Street film piece, Over! Under! Through!” (If you’re under forty, you might not remember this film. It taught the concepts of, “over,” and “under,” and “through” by filming toddlers crawling around an abandoned construction site. They don’t show it anymore because someone has since realized that’s nuts.) If your boss is a jerk, try to find someone above or around your boss who is not a jerk. If you’re lucky, your workplace will have a neutral proving ground- like the rifle range or a car sales total board of the SNL read-through. If so, focus on that. Again, don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions. Go “Over! Under! Through!” and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? Do your thing and don’t care if they like it.

~ Tina Fey

My unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism or ageism or lookism or even really aggressive Buddhism, 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 your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you’re in charge, don’t hire the people who were jerky to you. If the answer is yes, you have a more difficult road ahead of you. I suggest you model your strategy after the old Sesame Street film piece, Over! Under! Through!” (If you’re under forty, you might not remember this film. It taught the concepts of, “over,” and “under,” and “through” by filming toddlers crawling around an abandoned construction site. They don’t show it anymore because someone has since realized that’s nuts.) If your boss is a jerk, try to find someone above or around your boss who is not a jerk. If you’re lucky, your workplace will have a neutral proving ground- like the rifle range or a car sales total board or the SNL read-through. If so, focus on that. Again, don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions. Go “Over! Under! Through!” and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? Do your thing and don’t care if they like it.

~ Tina Fey

In 1995, each cast at The Second City was made up of four men and two women. When it was suggested that they switch one of the companies to three men and three women, the producers and directors had the same panicked reaction. 'You can't do that. There won't be enough parts to go around. There won't be enough for the girls.' This made no sense to me, probably because I speak English and have never had a head injury. We weren't doing _Death of a Salesman._ _We were making up the show ourselves. How could there not be enough parts?_ If everyone had something to contribute, there would be enough. The insulting implication, of course, was that the women wouldn't have any ideas.

~ Tina Fey

We spent days and weeks doing nothing, calling one another ten times a day to schedule our nothing-doing.

~ Tina Fey

What is he rudest question you can ask a woman? 'How old are you?' 'What do you weigh?' No, the worst question is '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. My standard answer is that I have the same struggles as any working parent but with the good fortune of working my dream job.

~ Tina Fey

You have to let people see what you wrote. It will never be perfect, but perfect is overrated.

~ Tina Fey

Was it too much to expect the rest of the world to care about grammar or pay attention to details?

~ Tina Fey

I have one top-notch baby with whom I am in love. It's a head-over-heels first love kind of thing, because I pay for everything and all we do is hold hands.

~ Tina Fey

Everyone is quiet. Which is the wooooooorst. It’s scary when a group of people all know instinctively not to joke around.

~ Tina Fey

Someone should do a study of the human brain and how quickly it can adjust to luxury.

~ Tina Fey

Lots of teenage girls have taken comfort under the wings of half-closeted gay boys.

~ Tina Fey

(My ability to turn good news into anxiety is rivaled only by my ability to turn anxiety into chin acne.)

~ Tina Fey

My first job as assistant director was to make sure he didn't cast the talented blond dancer who had so easily stolen my boyfriend the summer before. I accomplished this with the persistent and skilled manipulation of a grade A bitch.

~ Tina Fey

In improv there are no mistakes, only beautiful happy accidents. And many of the world’s greatest discoveries have been by accident.

~ Tina Fey

It’s a great lesson about not being too precious about your writing. You have to try your hardest to be at the top of your game and improve every joke you can until the last possible second, and then you have to let it go. You can’t be that kid standing at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it…You have to let people see what you wrote.

~ Tina Fey

This worked out perfectly for me in college, because what nineteen-year-old Virginia boy doesn't want a wide-hipped, sarcastic Greek girl with short hair that's permed on top? What's that you say? None of them want that? You are correct.

~ Tina Fey

Only in comedy, by the way, does an obedient white girl from the suburbs count as diversity

~ Tina Fey

I was walking home alone from school and I was wearing a dress. A dude drove by and yelled, Nice tits. Embarrassed and enraged, I screamed after him, Suck my dick.

~ Tina Fey

So, to sum up my room-clearing generalizations, men are in comedy to break rules.

~ Tina Fey