Lily Tomlin Quotes

After all, in private, we're all misfits

Suddenly I burst into song: 'Awe, sweet mystery of life, at last I found thee...' And I felt so good inside and my heart felt so full, I decided I would set time aside each day to do awe-robics. Because at the moment you are most in awe of all there is about life that you don't understand, you are closer to understanding it all than at any other time.

Does your mind feel more and more like teflon? Nothing sticks to it?

When we speak to God, we call it prayer; when God speaks back, we call it psychosis!

When I've had a meltdown, people will say to me, "Well, you failed to keep your sense of humor."

Remember we're all in this alone.

What goes up must come down. But don't expect it to come down where you can find it.

If I had known what it would be like to have it all - I might have been willing to settle for less.

9 to 5 made people aware of equal pay for equal work. It hasn't really happened, but it has come closer.

I guess if people couldn't profit from war I don't think there would be war.

We're giving jobs to people who would otherwise be out of work if we weren't exploiting cheap labor.

It's a more ridiculing, divisive humor today.

If beauty is truth, why don't women go to the library to have their hair done?

Sexual freedom and liberation has to be of your own making. I'm stunned when I hear about friends' children, ten or twelve years old giving blow jobs. I just don't like the girls being used or exploited in that way. It's just indiscriminate sexual relating. It's just the isolated things.

Nobody is here without a reason. I always had a different sensibility. I like a huge range of comedy - from broad and farcical, the most sensitive, the most understated - but I always wanted my comedy to be more embracing of the species rather than debasing of it.

If life is so meaningless, then why are we always bringing it up?

And yet humanity is so not evolved that how can you expect anything absolutely major to happen? Look how long, we move ahead in technology, how much do we move ahead in morality or emotion? We move ahead so minimally, minimally, minimally.

I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.

I never thought of myself as any kind of a film star, as many films as I've made - and I've made some really fun movies with good people. I've always been paired with someone because I'm not really box office, in that carrying-a-picture sense. I've always been busy, but not in the spotlight.

I guess that's one of the reasons that you do it - work all the time - because it's sort of a high to find something that really works.

No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.

I wonder what it would be like if we all became what we wanted to be when we grew up? I mean, imagine a world filled with nothing but firemen, cowboys, nurses and ballerinas.

Even when I'm being funny, I'm deadly serious.

If you have a dog or a cat, you know how developed they can be. How sensitive, how aware. They suffer. We all do.

You are what you think ... geez, that's frightening.

I wanted to be a stage actress. I wanted to be a New York actress and have a community with other actors. I didn't want to get famous; I always thought getting famous was a drag on you.

There's nothing sadder than getting to the end of your life and saying, 'I didn't do it right'.

If trying harder doesn't work, try softer.

Infinity is just time on an ego trip.

Why is it that when we talk to God we're said to be praying but when God talks to us we're schizophrenic?

The thing that most distresses me is whenever I see things over sexualized, I worry about young girls. Some of the fall out of the feminist movement is that it made younger and younger girls more sexually available. It's part of the philosophy, be your own person and be free. But, girls are so over sexualized in this culture.

If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?

What if it's boring - or if it's not boring, it might be too revealing, or worse, it might be too revealing and still be boring.

I especially love 'Web Therapy' and I did 'Eastbound and Down' too. I had a lot of fun doing that.

Exercise is for people who can't handle drugs or alcohol.

Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.

I feel some part of me can wake up and be very existential and the next day wake up and be sort of in love with the universe.

Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet?

The road to success is always under construction.

But there are too many people that make so much money at the cost of lives of other humans and for no reason but to make the money.

Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.

Wouldn't it be great if we all grew up to be what we wanted to be? The world would be full of nurses, firemen, and ballerinas.

I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain.

Sometimes I feel like a figment of my own imagination.

Truth is, I've always been selling out. The difference is that in the past, I looked like I had integrity because there were no buyers.

Don't be afraid of missing opportunities. Behind every failure is an opportunity somebody wishes they had missed.

The whole idea of being in captivity in such limited space, especially in a zoo, causes elephants to suffer. They develop all kinds of foot diseases. They die. They get cysts. Not only is it painful, it eventually kills them.

The larger picture is really to swing people's awareness of what really is moral.