Lily Tomlin Quotes - Page 4

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.

Creating characters is just another way to express a type and put that type to use.

Having a real public outlet is how you imprint something for yourself. It's just a matter of timing. It's like you've marked your territory.

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

You can't expect insights, even the big ones, to make you suddenly understand everything. But I figure: Hey it's a step in the right direction if they leave you confused in a deeper way.

What I appreciate is acknowledging to the audience that I think they have brains.

I try to be cynical, but it's so hard to keep up.

You know being relevant or coming up with something interesting, funny to say about what's current is just as hard as it might ever be depending on the serendipity of it all.

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.

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.

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

The phone company handles 84 billion calls a year-everything from kings, queens, and presidents to the scum of the earth.

In the depths of the night, fear grips my heart. It paralyzes my mind. But most of all, I feel very, very alone

When we talk to god, it's prayer. When god talks to us, it's schizophrenia.

If evolution was worth its salt, it should've evolved something better than 'survival of the fittest.' I think a better idea would be 'survival of the wittiest.' At least, that way, creatures that didn't survive could've died laughing.

To act out something or take chances in the performance is one thing. But in terms of a camera, whatever's captured is captured so that's a little more daunting. You know you can't go back next week and fix it. Whereas in a live audience you know it's so in the moment and you just go with what's happening. First of all you never have to see it again so you don't know if you were really fulfilling it or not.

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.

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.

Did you know, throughout the cosmos they found intelligent life forms that play to play? We are the only ones that play to win. Explains why we have more than our share of losers.

I was always drawn to more the social-expression-of-culture types.

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.

Language was invented because of the deep human need to complain.

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.

People hire me to create some kind of archetype or some culture type, or something. I guess they accept whatever I come up with.

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.