Tina Fey Quotes

The first rule of improvisation is AGREE. Always agree and SAY YES. When you're improvising, this means you are required to agree with whatever your partner has created. So if we're improvising and I say, 'Freeze, I have a gun,' and you say, 'That's not a gun. It's your finger. You're pointing your finger at me,' our improvised scene has ground to a halt. But if I say, 'Freeze, I have a gun!' and you say, 'The gun I gave you for Christmas! You bastard!' then we have started a scene because we have AGREED that my finger is in fact a Christmas gun.

~ Tina Fey

The second rule of improvisation is not only to say yes, but YES, AND. You are supposed to agree and then _add something of your own._ If I start a scene with 'I can't believe it's so hot in here,' and you just say, 'Yeah...' we're kind of at a stand-still. But if I say, 'I can't believe it's so hot in here,' and you say, 'What did you expect? We're in hell.' Or if I say, 'I can't believe it's so hot in here,' and you say, 'Yes, this can't be good for the wax figures.' Or if I say, 'I can't believe it's so hot in here,' and you say, 'I told you we shouldn't have crawled into this dog's mouth,' now we're getting somewhere.

~ Tina Fey

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.

~ Tina Fey

And when she [her daughter] one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends,For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.

~ Tina Fey

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.

~ Tina Fey

You could put a blond wig on a hot-water heater and some dude would try to fuck it.

~ Tina Fey

Photoshop is just like makeup. When it’s done well it looks great, and when it’s overdone you look like a crazy asshole.

~ Tina Fey

(My proudest moment as a child was the time I beat my uncle Pierre at Scrabble with the seven-letter word FARTING.)

~ Tina Fey

5) The Eyes Are the Windows to Where the Soul Is Supposed to Be

~ Tina Fey

You've gotta stop calling each sl*ts and wh*r*s. That just makes it more okay for GUYS to call you sl*ts and wh*r*s.

~ 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

It is a testament to my parents that they never reacted negatively to the four-year-long pride parade that marched through their house.

~ Tina Fey

One family, two impressively gay brothers.

~ Tina Fey

Because, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I was embraced by the gays. They loved me and praised me. I was funny and so mean and mature for my age!

~ Tina Fey

I find, the fancier the fashion magazine is, the worse the Photoshop. It’s as if they are already so disgusted that a human has to be in the clothes, they can’t stop erasing human features.

~ Tina Fey

A wise friend once told me, 'Don't wear what fashion designers tell you to wear. Wear what _they_ wear.' His point being that most designers, no matter what they throw onto the runway, favor simple, flattering pieces for themselves.

~ Tina Fey

Your father doesn't fucking play games. you would never come home with a shamrock tattoo in that house.

~ Tina Fey

There is no one of-woman-born who does not like Red Lobster cheddar biscuits. Anyone who claims otherwise is a liar and a Socialist.

~ Tina Fey

Almost everyone first realized they were becoming a grown woman when some dude did something nasty to them. ...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

There are different types of fancy photographers. Some are big, fun personalities like Mario Testino, who once told me, “Lift your chin, darling, you are not eighteen.” I enjoyed his honesty. Also, I’m pretty sure he says that to models who are nineteen.

~ Tina Fey

There's a Drunk Midget in My HouseAh, babies! They're more than just adorable little creatures on whom you can blame your farts. Like most people who have had one baby, I am an expert on everythiing and will tell you, unsolicited, how to raise your kid!

~ Tina Fey

I have a strong urge to lie down and pretend this is not happening—like the old couple in Titanic.

~ Tina Fey

It's one thing to be a wisecracking precocious teen hanging out with twenty-seven year olds.It's another thing to get in the way of a grown man trying to get laid.

~ Tina Fey

As an improviser, I always find it jarring when I meet someone in real life whose first answer is no. “No, we can’t do that.” “No, that’s not in the budget.” “No, I will not hold your hand for a dollar.” What kind of way is that to live?

~ Tina Fey

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.

~ Tina Fey

I would not trade any of these features for anybody else’s. I wouldn’t trade the small thin-lipped mouth that makes me resemble my nephew. I wouldn’t even trade the acne scar on my right cheek, because that recurring zit spent more time with me in college than any boy ever did.

~ Tina Fey

I have a suspicion - and hear me out, 'cause this is a rough one - I have a suspicion that the definition of crazy in show business is a woman who keeps talking even after no one wants to fuck her anymore. The only person I can think of that has escaped the crazy moniker is Betty White, which, obviously, is because people still want to have sex with her.

~ Tina Fey

If you want to be a screenwriter, take an acting class to get a sense of what you're asking actors to do. Learning other skills will help you communicate with people and respect what they do.

~ Tina Fey

I work, and then whenever I have any other time, I'm with my daughter, and then I go to sleep. I think you basically have to abandon the dreams of having any other adult activities in your life. You have to go to sleep whenever your child goes to sleep. That's basically how we're doing it.

~ Tina Fey

I think you basically have to abandon the dreams of having any other adult activities in your life. You have to go to sleep whenever your child goes to sleep.

~ Tina Fey

When humor works, it works because it's clarifying what people already feel. It has to come from someplace real.

~ Tina Fey

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.

~ Tina Fey

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.

~ Tina Fey

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.'

~ Tina Fey

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.

~ 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.'

~ Tina Fey

I'm not that good looking... nobody is that good looking. I have seen a lot of movie stars, and maybe four are amazing looking. The rest have a team of gay guys who make it happen.

~ Tina Fey

I am constantly amazed by Tina Fey. And I am Tina Fey.

~ Tina Fey

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.

~ Tina Fey

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.

~ Tina Fey