Famous Lily Tomlin Quotes
“Reality is a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs.”
As "Trudy"
Unsourced variant: Reality is a crutch for people who can't handle drugs.
Contributions of Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)
“If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?”
Contributions of Jane Wagner
Source: Many Moons
“If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?”
Contributions of Jane Wagner
Lily Tomlin Quotes about people
Metro Weekly interview (2006)
The Advocate interview (2005)
Contributions of Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)
Metro Weekly interview (2006)
Context: 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.
“The larger picture is really to swing people's awareness of what really is moral. …”
The Advocate interview (2005)
Context: The larger picture is really to swing people's awareness of what really is moral.... There are great clergy-people who absolutely do not agree with this. It's not whether God is on our side or whether we're doing God's will, it's being so narcissistic as to think that God is telling you what to do.
The Advocate interview (2005)
Lily Tomlin Quotes about the truth
Closing line of her skits as "Edith Ann", on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1969 - 1973), and in later productions.
Lily Tomlin: Trending quotes
“The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.”
Contributions of Jane Wagner
Variant: I always wanted to be something, but now I see I should have been more specific.
Metro Weekly interview (2006)
Context: 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.
Lily Tomlin Quotes
Metro Weekly interview (2006)
Context: It's a more ridiculing, divisive humor today, especially with the advent of political incorrectness, which is a license to be as ridiculing and awful about certain groups... There should be room for everybody, absolutely, and then the culture is going to decide the prevailing weight. We can't decide it individually. 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.
“Jane took me to another level because she's truly a wonderful writer.”
Metro Weekly interview (2006)
Context: 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.
“It's a more ridiculing, divisive humor today”
Metro Weekly interview (2006)
Context: It's a more ridiculing, divisive humor today, especially with the advent of political incorrectness, which is a license to be as ridiculing and awful about certain groups... There should be room for everybody, absolutely, and then the culture is going to decide the prevailing weight. We can't decide it individually. 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.
“We just sort of clicked. We became a couple right away.”
Metro Weekly interview (2006)
Context: 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.
Metro Weekly interview (2006)
Context: 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.
“It's my belief we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.”
As "Trudy"
Unsourced variants: I personally think we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.
Man invented language to satisfy his deep inner need to complain.
Contributions of Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)
Variant: Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
“Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it.”
As "Trudy"
Contributions of Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)
Variant: Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it....
“No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.”
As Lily
Unsourced variant: No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up.
Contributions of Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)
“I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework”
Contributions of Jane Wagner, As Edith Ann
Contributions of Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)
Variant: Remember we're all in this alone.
“Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.”
As "Trudy"
Contributions of Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)
Referring to her teenage diary, in an interview in Movie magazine (July 1983)
“Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.”
Contributions of Jane Wagner
“Sometimes I feel like a figment of my own imagination.”
As "Chrissy"
Contributions of Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)
The Advocate interview (2005)
“Your problem is your role models were models.”
Contributions of Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)
As "Trudy"
Contributions of Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)
“When you're dancing the mystical dance of the molecules, you're not the one who's leading.”
As "Trudy"
Contributions of Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)
“I've seen these women all my life, I know how they walk, I know how they talk…”
Response after being asked how she felt playing a heterosexual in Nashville, on her album Modern Scream (1975)
As quoted in Variety magazine (2003)
“I bet the worst part about dying is the part where your whole life passes before you.”
Contributions of Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)
As Judith Beasley in The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981)
“If you can't be direct, why be?”
Recounting what a college classmate said to her when she was acting "insecure and wimpy", as quoted at Tomlin's official site. http://www.lilytomlin.com/lily/quotes.htm
“If the formula for water is H2O, is the formula for an ice cube H2O squared?”
Contributions of Jane Wagner
The Advocate interview (2005)
“If I had known what it would be like to have it all… I might have been willing to settle for less.”
As "Lyn"
Contributions of Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)
“All my life, I've always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific.”
As "Chrissy"
Contributions of Jane Wagner, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1985)
The same week I had a big story in Newsweek. In one of the magazines it says I live alone, and the other magazine said I live with Jane Wagner. Unless you were so really adamantly out, and had made some declaration at some press conference, people back then didn't write about your relationship.
Metro Weekly interview (2006)
