Somewhere around the fifth or seventh grade I figured out that I could ingratiate myself to people by making them laugh. Essentially, I was just trying to make them like me. But after a while it became part of my identity.

Yeah, it's tough being smart and sexy, too. I have to say, I'm really not that attractive. Until I met my husband, I could not get a date. I promise you it's true. My husband Jeff Richmond saw a diamond in the rough and took me in.

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.

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.

I was the editor of the school newspaper and in drama club and choir, so I was not a popular girl in the traditional sense, but I think I was known for being relatively scathing.

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

Somewhere around the fifth or seventh grade I figured out that I could ingratiate myself to people by making them laugh. Essentially, I was just trying to make them like me. But after a while it became part of my identity.

I think if you ask any of us here, we all dreamed of ending up on Saturday Night Live. I remember thinking, 'I'll just keep doing this as long as I can get away with it.'

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.

An interim government was set up in Afghanistan. It included two women, one of whom was Minister of Women's Affairs. Man, who'd she have to show here ankles to to get that job?

Acting is really about showing up that day and telling the writers what you feel like saying.

After college, I knew I wanted to work in comedy, so the first thing I did was go to where the comedy was. I moved from Charlottesville to Chicago, because that's where The Second City and Improv Olympics are. You have to go wherever you need to go to study what interests you.

Being a mom has made me so tired. And so happy.

Every kid has something they're good at, that you hope they find and gravitate toward.

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.

I do like to start on time; I like to set the bar high for people.

I don't enjoy any kind of danger or volatility. I don't have that kind of 'I love the bad guys' thing. No, no thank you. I like nice people.

I don't like a tremendous amount of conflict. I don't think that fighting and passion are the same thing.

I don't like my feet. I'm not crazy about anybody's feet. But I have flat feet.

I don't want to be somebody else.

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.

I have to say, I'm really not that attractive. Until I met my husband, I could not get a date.

I have two daughters, and we live here in Manhattan, and having gone through the Manhattan kindergarten application process, nothing will ever rival the stress of that.

I like to write about women, not so much about the way they relate to men, but about the way they relate to each other. And I don't think anyone's really doing it.

I really admire stand-up, and I think I would have loved to learn how to do it. I think it's terrifying and thrilling. A really cool thing to do. It's a dying art, in a way.

I really love cursing a lot. But as I get older, I realize it's a little unseemly for women of a certain age.

I really wasn't heavy in high school. But no one feels right in their own skin, particularly in high school.

I remember failing my Princeton interview. My mom wanted me to apply because ever since I was a kid she had this dream that I would apply to Princeton, but it was just not happening.

I still want Oprah to play my best friend. I want to spend time with Oprah.

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.

I think my level of fame will drop back down. I think it'll recede. In fact, I know it will. That's life on Planet Earth. And I'm okay with that. Besides getting tables at restaurants and special treatment at the airport, what else is there?

I think people fetishize glasses in general. You could put glasses on a rotting pumpkin and people would think it was sexy.

I want to spend time with Oprah, and I don't know what I need to do to make that happen.

I want to thank my parents for somehow raising me to have confidence that is disproportionate with my looks and abilities.

I was a very confident little kid.

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.

I'm more of a writer than an actor, and I used to say that I'm mostly an improviser, though I haven't improvised in awhile.

I'm not a mean person, but I have a capacity for it.

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.

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.

If you're an actor and you don't get cast in stuff a lot, then put together a show or hold play-reading nights at your apartment. Make your own opportunities.

Mary Tyler Moore was a working woman whose story lines were not always about dating and men. They were about work friendships and relationships, which is what I feel my adult life has mostly been about.

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.

My favorite day at '30 Rock' is Thursday when the show airs. At lunch, we screen the episodes. For everyone to watch together, to see the stuff we all worked on, to hear the crew laugh - it's great fun.

Someone once said that to make a regular person laugh, you need to dress a guy up like an old lady and push him down the stairs. To make a comedy writer laugh, you have to push a real old lady down the stairs. I don't know who that's attributed to. I think it's Aristophanes. Or Catherine the Great.

Sometimes people expect that I'm going to be tough. It's not a bad situation. People treat you better. People are on time.

The ladies of comedy now are comfortable dressing up. It's not forbidden anymore.

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.

We're all comedy fans in my family. My parents mainly wouldn't let me watch stuff that was either annoying to them, or just garbage. My dad wouldn't let us watch 'The Flintstones' if he was home, because he said it was a rip-off of 'The Honeymooners'. But he would let us stay up really late in the summer and watch old 'Honeymooners'.