Celebrate Tina Fey’s New TV Show With 59 Of Her Most Awesome Quotes
By Nico Lang
Rejoice, 30 Rock and Mean Girls fans! The reigning goddess of TV comedy is coming back to the small screen with a new show. Described as a “Cheers-style comedy” set in Fire Island, the show is about a woman reconnecting with her family as she struggles to make a home for herself and teams her with much of the same crew that she worked with on 30 Rock.
Liz Lemon might not be coming back, but this is the next best thing. To celebrate, here’s 59 of the funny lady’s best quotes — coupled with some GIFs from 30 Rock.
1. “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.” [from Bossypants]
2. Whether blondes have more fun: “Let’s admit it, yellow hair does have magic powers. You could put a blond wig on a hot-water heater and some dude would try to fuck it.” [from Bossypants]
3. “When I was in my early twenties, being called sexy was not part of my experience in any way. There’s such a small window of time when people want to write any articles about you. If you’re a woman and they say anything complimentary about your appearance, well, I’m not going to complain. I fully intend to keep all of these magazines in the attic and bring them out for my daughter someday. ‘You see? There was a time when people thought your mother was a sexy bitch.’” [The Believer]
4. “Glasses would make anyone look smarter. You put glasses on Woody Harrelson in Indecent Proposal and he’s an architect. You put a pair of glasses on Denise Richards and she’s a paleontologist.” [The Believer]
5. On nicknames for body parts: “I do love cooter. I suppose I like cooter because it’s one of the least graphic ways to describe a lady’s genitals. Not that I don’t have an appreciation for other euphemisms. There’s an SNL writer named Matt Piedmont who used to write these unairable but hilarious sketches, and one of them had over fifty euphemisms for the female genitals. I don’t remember most of them, except for ‘meat drapes.’ That really stuck out for me. Meat drapes. It leaves you with such a vivid and disturbing image.” [Entertainment Weekly]
6. On getting older: “I need to take my pants off as soon as I get home. I didn’t used to have to do that. But now I do.” [Bossypants]
7. “I see these stories like, so-and-so works three days a week on whatever — listen, if I could get a job where I go in three days a week and pitch stories on Smash, I am there. I will bring my own scarves. I have a lot of ideas.” [Entertainment Weekly]
8. “I spend most of my time in my daily life trying to be like a fashion noncombatant. My hands are up! I’m not even trying! That said, to talk about the impact of fashion is really interesting. I think so much of it is tied into feminism. I am a post-baby boomer who has been handed a sort of Spice Girls’ version of feminism. We’re supposed to be wearing half-shirts and jumping around. And, you know, maybe that’s not panning out. But you can tell different generations of women by whether or not they wear that Hillary Clinton blue power suit or the re-appropriated Playboy-symbol necklace worn ironically. I think women dress for other women to let them know what their deal is. Because if women were only dressing for men, there would be nothing but Victoria’s Secret. There would be no Dior.” [Vogue]
9. “I don’t hate animals and I would never hurt an animal; I just don’t actively care about them. When a coworker shows me cute pictures of her dog, I struggle to respond correctly, like an autistic person who has been taught to recognize human emotions from flash cards. In short, I am the worst.” [Bossypants]
10. “Gay people don’t actually try to convert people. That’s Jehovah’s Witnesses you’re thinking of.” [Bossypants]
11. “Read! When your baby is finally down for the night, pick up a juicy book like Eat, Pray, Love or Pride and Prejudice or my personal favorite, Understanding Sleep Disorders: Narcolepsy and Apnea; A Clinical Study. Taking some time to read each night really taught me how to feign narcolepsy when my husband asked me what my “plan” was for taking down the Christmas tree.” [Bossypants]
12. “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.” [Brainy Quote]
13. “There are a couple of things I want to impart to ladies who want to be in comedy: One, you don’t have to be weird or be quirky to get your job done. And two, comedy skill is not sexually transmittable. You do not have to sleep with a comedian to learn what you’re doing. Male comedians will not like that advice, but it is the truth.” [Bossypants]
14. On cutting back at work to be at home more: “There should be a new, more honest euphemism. Like, I’m leaving office because I plan to solicit more anonymous sex in bathrooms… I am going to dedicate myself, full time, to my day-drinking… Yeah, I am actually spending more time with my family — which is nice.” [NPR]
15. “A co-worker at SNL dropped an angry c-bomb on me and I had the weirdest reaction. To my surprise, I blurted, “No. You don’t get to call me that. My parents love me. I’m not some Adult Child of an Alcoholic that’s going to take that shit.” [Bossypants]
16. “I’m not really one for status symbols. I went to public school. I have all my original teeth and face parts. When left to my own devices, I dress like I’m here to service your aquarium.” [Bossypants]
17. “But I think the first real change in women’s body image came when JLo turned it butt-style. That was the first time that having a large-scale situation in the back was part of mainstream American beauty. Girls wanted butts now. Men were free to admit that they had always enjoyed them. And then, what felt like moments later, boom—Beyoncé brought the leg meat. A back porch and thick muscular legs were now widely admired. And from that day forward, women embraced their diversity and realized that all shapes and sizes are beautiful. Ah ha ha. No. I’m totally messing with you. All Beyonce and JLo have done is add to the laundry list of attributes women must have to qualify as beautiful. 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.” [Bossypants]
18. On being a working mom: “I had to get back to work. NBC has me under contract. The baby and I only have a verbal agreement.”
19. “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.” [Brainy Quote]
20. “By the way, when Oprah Winfrey is suggesting you may have overextended yourself, you need to examine your fucking life.” [Bossypants]
21. “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.” [Brainy Quote]
22. “Obviously, as an adult I realize this girl-on-girl sabotage is the third worst kind of female behavior, right behind saying “like” all the time and leaving your baby in a dumpster.” [Bossypants]
23. “How do you juggle it all?’ people constantly ask me, with an accusatory look in their eyes. ‘You’re screwing it all up, aren’t you?’ their eyes say. My standard answer is that I have the same struggle as any working parent but with the good fortune to be working at my dream job. Or sometimes I just hand them a juicy red apple I’ve poisoned in my working-mother witch cauldron and fly away.”
24. On food and sex: “That’s Peter Pan doughnuts in Brooklyn. It’s a Polish bakery. We shot nearby once for 30 Rock. Its white-cream-filled powdered doughnut. And I really believe, when I first tried it, if I had a penis, I would put it in this doughnut. I finally understand what you guys are thinking about and what motivates you guys.” [Esquire]
25. “It’s an honor to work with Mark Wahlberg’s nipples in Date Night. They’ve been in a lot of amazing movies and music videos. I’m actually impressed the director, Shawn Levy, got him back to Shirtless Town. Because obviously he’s done some serious movies since he was a Calvin Klein model. He doesn’t have to give us the nipples. I don’t know if it’s that his nipples wanted to work with Steve Carell, or maybe his nipples are fans of The Office. But they showed up. No, I couldn’t see the third nipple. And I was paid to stare at them for a day.” [Esquire]
26. “If you retain nothing else, always remember the most important rule of beauty, which is: who cares?” [Bossypants]
27. “Ladies gotta say no to their husbands at the movies. They gotta say: “No, we are watching back-to-back cancer movies. And then this movie about a cat.”
28. “I think for women especially, you need to have a plan. I need to have some other ways to generate income, so I don’t have to stretch my face or lift the top of my head with surgery or something.” [Brainy Quote]
29. “I never dreamed I would receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, mostly because my style is so typically Austrian.”
30. “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.” [Bossypants]
31. “I really love cursing a lot. But as I get older, I realize it’s a little unseemly for women of a certain age. But then once you pass sixty-five, you can hit it full tilt again and it’s charming. Once you’re Lauren Bacall’s age, you can be like, ‘What the f*ck.’”
32. “Lesson learned? When people say, “You really, really must” do something, it means you don’t really have to. No one ever says, “You really, really must deliver the baby during labor.” When it’s true, it doesn’t need to be said.” [Bossypants]
33. On casting for 30 Rock: “The part of Jack Donaghy was written for Alec Baldwin. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the courage to introduce myself to him and tell him that at the time, so for several months I met with some of the best actors in New York…it just became clearer and clearer that this part was for no-one except Alec Baldwin. And so I knew what I had to do: I got pregnant and I stalled for a year.”
34. “This is what I tell young women who ask me for career advice. People are going to try to trick you. To make you feel that you are in competition with one another. ‘You’re up for a promotion. If they go for a woman, it’ll be between you and Barbara.’ Don’t be fooled. You’re not in competition with other women. You’re in competition with everyone.” [Bossypants]
35. “When actors are too good-looking, I can’t memorize them. For example, I’ve never seen a picture of Sienna Miller where I didn’t say, ‘That girl’s pretty. Who’s that?’”
36. “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.” [Bossypants]
37. “Amy Poehler and I have been friends for so long, we’re like Oprah and Gale. Only we’re not denying anything.”
38. “To say I’m an overrated troll, when you have never even seen me guard a bridge, is patently unfair.” [Bossypants]
39. “Ah, babies! They’re more than just adorable little creatures on whom you can blame your farts.”
40. “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.”
41. “I regularly ate health food cookies so disgusting that when I enthusiastically gave one to Rachel Dratch, she drew a picture of a rabbit and broke the cookie into a trail of tiny pieces coming out of the rabbit’s butt.”
42. “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.” [Bossypants]
43. “Confidence is 10% hard work and 90% delusion.”
44. “My ability to turn good news into anxiety is rivaled only by my ability to turn anxiety into chin acne.” [Bossypants]
45. “If you’ve been to high school, chances are you’ve got a yearbook lying around that’s full of enough cringe-worthy quotes and photos to mortify you until your dying day.” [Huffington Post]
46. “I’m not a mean person, but I have a capacity for it. I have the biting comment formed somewhere in the back of my head — like it’s in captivity. Sometimes people expect that I’m going to be tough. It’s not a bad situation. People treat you better. People are on time.” [Reader’s Digest]
47. “I’ve been reading the ‘50 Most Beautiful People’ issue for years, and there’s always one person on the list who makes you think, ‘Give me a fucking break.’ This year, I’m proud to be that person.” [The Believer]
48. “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.’ Sure, it didn’t make any sense, but at least I didn’t hold in my anger.” [Bossypants]
49. When people ask how she got famous: “I don’t fit the mold. In this country, success usually happens when you are 22 and six feet tall. Clearly, by asking that question, they are kind of letting me know that I am an aberration.” [Vogue]
50. “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.” [Bossypants]
51. “It was scary to be in that world of politics. I felt uncomfortable to be in that discussion. The weird thing is, when Darrell Hammond or Will Ferrell or Dana Carvey did an impersonation of a president, no one assumed it was personal, but because Sarah Palin and I are both women and people think women are meaner to each other, everyone assumed it was personal.” [Vogue]
52. “On Fox News, they address her as Governor Palin. Which is like calling me ‘Dairy Queen employee.’ I was once, but I quit.”
53. “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.” [Bossypants]
54. “I developed very early. I was probably in, you know, fifth grade, getting a bra. I say in the book that I developed breasts so early, and so strangely high, that it wasn’t — the bra was more to clarify what they were — that they were not a goiter, or something.” [on Fresh Air]
55. On whether or not women are funny: “It is an impressively arrogant move to conclude that just because you don’t like something, it is empirically not good. I don’t like Chinese food, but I don’t write articles trying to prove it doesn’t exist.” [from Bossypants]
56. “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.” [Bossypants]
57. “You know what? Bitches get stuff done.”
58. “Don’t be too precious or attached to anything you write. Let things be malleable. For sketch writers, remember they’re called sketches for a reason. They’re not called oil paintings. Some of them are going to stink. You have to let them stink.”
59. “I know for sure that you can tell how smart people are by what they laugh at. I know for sure that a hard-boiled egg is two points on Weight Watchers. I know for sure that my kid needs my husband and me to be with her more. And I know for sure that I can’t get comfortable with all the attention I’ve been getting because it won’t last forever. It’s just a moment — and there will be other moments when people don’t care what I’m doing.” [Oprah]