Lily Tomlin

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.

Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man

Jane took me to another level because she's truly a wonderful writer. I'd put things together in the past and struggled with them. And then I met Jane. … I was doing my Edith Ann album in '71 — the album came out in '72. She'd done a thing on television called J.T. — it was about a kid in Harlem — and she won a Peabody for it. I later learned it was the first thing she'd ever written. It was written as an After School Special, but they played it in prime time — and they played it every year after that for about 25 years, or something. Anyway, I saw it and it was wonderful. It was poetic and sensitive and satiric and tender and funny and so many things compressed into this one hour. And I thought, "Oh, God, this is exactly what I want in a monologue." So I wrote Jane and asked her to help me do the Edith Ann album. I didn't hear from her for a while. Then, suddenly, about a week before I was supposed to go in and record, she sent me a lot of material. I persuaded her to come to California and help me produce it. Frankly, I was pretty taken with her as soon as I saw her. We just sort of clicked. We became a couple right away.

The best mind-altering drug is truth.

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

If you read a lot of books, you're considered well-read. But if you watch a lot of TV, you're not considered well-viewed.

When I was growing up I always wanted to be someone. Now I realize I should have been more specific.

When you're dancing the mystical dance of the molecules, you're not the one who's leading.

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.

Reality is a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs.

After all, in private, we're all misfits

Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it....