Lily Tomlin Quotes

The road to success is always under construction.

I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.

Why is it that when we talk to God we're said to be praying but when God talks to us we're schizophrenic?

There's so much plastic in this culture that vinyl leopard skin is becoming an endangered synthetic.

For fast-acting relief try slowing down.

If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?

I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.

Ninety eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then, we elected them.

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

I always wondered why somebody doesn't do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody.

Instead of working for the survival of the fittest, we should be working for the survival of the wittiest - then we can all die laughing.

Maybe if people started to listen, history would stop repeating itself.

We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation.

Wouldn't it be great if we all grew up to be what we wanted to be? The world would be full of nurses, firemen, and ballerinas.

What goes up must come down. But don't expect it to come down where you can find it.

If I had known what it would be like to have it all - I might have been willing to settle for less.

The best mind-altering drug is the truth.

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.

Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.

The start to a better world is the belief that it is possible.

You are what you think ... geez, that's frightening.

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

When I am happy I feel like crying, but when I am sad I don’t feel like laughing. I think it is better to be happy; then you get two feelings for the price of one.

I can handle reality in small doses, but as a lifestyle, it's much too confining.

Success is a ladder that cannot be climbed with your hands in your pocket - The road to success is always under construction

After all, in private, we're all misfits

My politics are just inclined to be empathetic and humanistic. I grew up with so many different kinds of people with different politics, different religion, no religion, no politics, education, no education, and I was infatuated with all of them.

Don't be afraid of missing opportunities. Behind every failure is an opportunity somebody wishes they had missed.

The formula for water is H2O. Is the formula for an ice cube H2O squared?

We are all in this together, by ourselves.

Sometimes I feel like a figment of my own imagination.

Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.

If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?

I feel some part of me can wake up and be very existential and the next day wake up and be sort of in love with the universe.

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

No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.

We are people with lives, not consumers with lifestyles.

Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.

Well, if I can be of any help at all, you are in worse trouble than I thought.

If trying harder doesn't work, try softer.

Being a New Yorker is never having to say you are sorry.

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.

When we speak to God, we call it prayer; when God speaks back, we call it psychosis!

To me, "sexual freedom" means freedom from having to have sex.

Remember we're all in this alone.

Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse.

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.

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.

I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain.