Tina Fey

the best of" show was completely gone and we were in big trouble, except we didn't really care.

You have to let people see what you wrote. It will never be perfect, but perfect is overrated.

What is he rudest question you can ask a woman? 'How old are you?' 'What do you weigh?' No, the worst question is 'How do you juggle it all?' people constantly ask me, with an accusatory look in their eyes. 'You're fucking it all up, aren't you?' their eyes say. My standard answer is that I have the same struggles as any working parent but with the good fortune of working my dream job.

We spent days and weeks doing nothing, calling one another ten times a day to schedule our nothing-doing.

In 1995, each cast at The Second City was made up of four men and two women. When it was suggested that they switch one of the companies to three men and three women, the producers and directors had the same panicked reaction. 'You can't do that. There won't be enough parts to go around. There won't be enough for the girls.' This made no sense to me, probably because I speak English and have never had a head injury. We weren't doing _Death of a Salesman._ _We were making up the show ourselves. How could there not be enough parts?_ If everyone had something to contribute, there would be enough. The insulting implication, of course, was that the women wouldn't have any ideas.

My unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism or ageism or lookism or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: __s this person in between me and what I want to do? If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you__e in charge, don__ hire the people who were jerky to you. If the answer is yes, you have a more difficult road ahead of you. I suggest you model your strategy after the old Sesame Street film piece, "Over! Under! Through!_ (If you__e under forty, you might not remember this film. It taught the concepts of, __ver,_ and __nder,_ and __hrough_ by filming toddlers crawling around an abandoned construction site. They don__ show it anymore because someone has since realized that__ nuts.) If your boss is a jerk, try to find someone above or around your boss who is not a jerk. If you__e lucky, your workplace will have a neutral proving ground- like the rifle range or a car sales total board of the SNL read-through. If so, focus on that. Again, don__ waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions. Go __ver! Under! Through!_ and opinions will change organically when you__e the boss. Or they won__. Who cares? Do your thing and don__ care if they like it.

My unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism or ageism or lookism or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: __s this person in between me and what I want to do? If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you__e in charge, don__ hire the people who were jerky to you. If the answer is yes, you have a more difficult road ahead of you. I suggest you model your strategy after the old Sesame Street film piece, "Over! Under! Through!_ (If you__e under forty, you might not remember this film. It taught the concepts of, __ver,_ and __nder,_ and __hrough_ by filming toddlers crawling around an abandoned construction site. They don__ show it anymore because someone has since realized that__ nuts.) If your boss is a jerk, try to find someone above or around your boss who is not a jerk. If you__e lucky, your workplace will have a neutral proving ground- like the rifle range or a car sales total board or the SNL read-through. If so, focus on that. Again, don__ waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions. Go __ver! Under! Through!_ and opinions will change organically when you__e the boss. Or they won__. Who cares? Do your thing and don__ care if they like it.

Anytime there's a bad female stand-up somewhere, some dickhead Interblogger will deduce that __omen aren't funny._ Using that same math, I can state: Male comedy writers piss in cups.

You all watched a sketch about feminism and you didn't even know it because of all the jokes. It's like when Jessica Seinfeld puts spinach in kids' brownies. Suckers!

When did you first feel like a grown woman and not a girl?_ We wrote down our answers and shared them, first in pairs, then in larger groups. The group of women was racially and economically diverse, but the answers had a very similar theme. Almost everyone first realized they were becoming a grown woman when some dude did something nasty to them. __ was walking home from ballet and a guy in a car yelled, __ick me!__ __ was babysitting my younger cousins when a guy drove by and yelled, __ice ass.__ There were pretty much zero examples like __ first knew I was a woman when my mother and father took me out to dinner to celebrate my success on the debate team._ It was mostly men yelling shit from cars. Are they a patrol sent out to let girls know they__e crossed into puberty? If so, it__ working.

My dad looks like Clint Eastwood. His half-Scottish, half-German face in repose is handsome but terrifying. I searched the audience for him during the sixth-grade chorus concert and, seeing his stern expression, was convinced that he had seen me messing up the words to the Happy Days theme and that I was in big trouble. I spent the rest of the concert suppressing terror bumps, only to be given a big hug and a kiss afterward. It took me years to realize, Oh, that's just his face.

Don't hire anyone you wouldn't want to run into in the hallway at three in the morning.

In most cases being a good boss means hiring talented people and then getting out of their way.

Ever since I became an executive producer of 30 Rock, people have asked me, 'Is it hard for you, being the boss?' And, 'Is it uncomfortable for you to be the person in charge?' You know, in that same way they say, 'Gosh, Mr. Trump, is it awkward for you to be the boss of all these people?

Don__ waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions; go over, under, through, and opinions will change organically when you__e the boss. Or they won__. Who cares? Do your thing, and don__ care if they like it.

Most photographers have some kind of verbal patter going on when they shoot: "Great. Turn to me. Big smile. Less shark eyes. Have fun with it. Not like that." Some photographers are compulsively effusive. "Beautiful. Amazing. Gorgeous! Ugh, so gorgeous!" they yell at shutter speed. If you are anything less than insane, you will realize this is not sincere. It's hard to take because it's more positive feedback than you've received in your entire life thrown at you in fifteen seconds. It would be like going jogging while someone rode next to you in a slow-moving car, yelling, "Yes! You are Carl Lewis! You're breaking a world record right now. Amazing! You are fast. You're going very fast, yes!

...Whenever someone says to me, 'Jerry Lewis says women aren't funny,' or 'Christopher Hitchens says women aren't funny,' or 'Rick Fenderman says women aren't funny... Do you have anything to say to that?'Yes. We don't fucking care if you like it.I don't say it out loud, of course, because Jerry Lewis is a great philanthropist, Hitchens is very sick, and the third guy I made up.

[T]he definition of 'crazy' in show business is a woman who keeps talking even after no one wants to fuck her anymore.