Lily Tomlin
American actress and comedian; companion of Jane Wagner.
Don't be afraid of missing opportunities. Behind every failure is an opportunity somebody wishes they had missed.
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.
The point I want to make is, the idea that people will say — out of the 170,000 people or however many were killed in the tsunami — they'll say, "God saved me." As if God particularly saved this person. There's a tremendous amount of narcissism in that belief, that God is speaking directly to you. I mean, it's unbelievable. ... All these disparate opinions and points of view that people say they're getting as direct divine guidance — I've been concerned for decades about presidents who claim to be born again. And knowing that everyone I knew in the fundamentalist church or in the evangelical Christian church — they wanted the rapture to come. ... We don't have to save the environment, because we're not going to be around.
All my life, I've always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific.
Listen, I have no judgment about anything. Some people will bring certain celebrities up to me who are presumably — or known to be — gay and ask "Why don't they come out?" But we don't know why they don't, and it's none of our business, really. In '75 I was making the Modern Scream album, and Jane and I were in the studio. My publicist called me and said "Time will give you the cover if you'll come out." I was more offended than anything that they thought we'd make a deal. But that was '75 — it would have been a hard thing to do at that time.
People think there's some real subversive thing playing against whoever it is; a lot of it is just people who want to go along and get along. And they also want to make money. And the bottom line is, they're going to put out as much stuff as they can — stupid, banal stuff that makes money.
When you talk about yourself for 35 years, first of all, it gets repetitious. And then it seems a little bit excessive, at the least.
If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?
Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.
Your problem is your role models were models.
The best mind-altering drug is truth.
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.
9 to 5 made people aware of equal pay for equal work. It hasn't really happened, but it has come closer. We're aware of sexual harassment, and of course, there are very few companies that have daycare centers, which seems to me would be the most humane, positive thing to do for a worker. The worker would be more loyal, they'd be more productive. It's so crazy not to do the human thing. It seems to me to be much more profitable to do the human thing. It just makes a better society.
We went to a Southern Baptist church. When I was a small child, until I was about 8 or 9 years old, I worried if I didn't go forward and get saved every Sunday — which I couldn't do, it was absolutely too humiliating to see these adults flailing and beating their breasts and sobbing, and I thought, Oh, my God, this is so ridiculous, so embarrassing — I could never bring myself to go forward. And I'd think, Oh, my God, if I don't go next Sunday, if the end of the world comes, I'll go to hell. And that's is a pretty hard thing for a 7- or 8-year-old to carry all the time
Why is it when we talk to God we're said to be praying — but when God talks to us, we're said to be schizophrenic?
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
I respect her talent and her brain and who she is as a person — and that kind of admiration and respect is a big factor in binding someone in a relationship. I know what a good heart she has, and how empathetic she is with all kinds of people and issues — she's so brilliant on top of it that she can voice these things. And she's as funny as she can possibly be. She makes me laugh.
Sometimes I feel like a figment of my own imagination.
No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.
I've seen these women all my life, I know how they walk, I know how they talk...