1.
The road to success is always under construction.
Lily Tomlin
The pathway to triumph is perpetually in progress.
2.
I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.
Lily Tomlin
I appreciate an educator who provides food for thought in addition to assignments.
3.
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.
Lily Tomlin
4.
Why is it that when we talk to God we're said to be praying but when God talks to us we're schizophrenic?
Lily Tomlin
5.
There's so much plastic in this culture that vinyl leopard skin is becoming an endangered synthetic.
Lily Tomlin
6.
For fast-acting relief try slowing down.
Lily Tomlin
7.
If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?
Lily Tomlin
8.
I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.
Lily Tomlin
9.
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.
Lily Tomlin
10.
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.
Lily Tomlin
11.
I always wondered why somebody doesn't do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody.
Lily Tomlin
12.
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.
Lily Tomlin
13.
Maybe if people started to listen, history would stop repeating itself.
Lily Tomlin
14.
We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation.
Lily Tomlin
15.
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.
Lily Tomlin
16.
What goes up must come down. But don't expect it to come down where you can find it.
Lily Tomlin
17.
If I had known what it would be like to have it all - I might have been willing to settle for less.
Lily Tomlin
18.
The best mind-altering drug is the truth.
Lily Tomlin
19.
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.
Lily Tomlin
20.
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
Lily Tomlin
21.
The start to a better world is the belief that it is possible.
Lily Tomlin
22.
You are what you think ... geez, that's frightening.
Lily Tomlin
23.
Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it.
Lily Tomlin
24.
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.
Lily Tomlin
25.
I can handle reality in small doses, but as a lifestyle, it's much too confining.
Lily Tomlin
26.
Success is a ladder that cannot be climbed with your hands in your pocket -
The road to success is always under construction
Lily Tomlin
27.
After all, in private, we're all misfits
Lily Tomlin
28.
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.
Lily Tomlin
29.
Don't be afraid of missing opportunities. Behind every failure is an opportunity somebody wishes they had missed.
Lily Tomlin
30.
The formula for water is H2O. Is the formula for an ice cube H2O squared?
Lily Tomlin
31.
We are all in this together, by ourselves.
Lily Tomlin
32.
Sometimes I feel like a figment of my own imagination.
Lily Tomlin
33.
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
Lily Tomlin
34.
If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?
Lily Tomlin
35.
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.
Lily Tomlin
36.
The phone company handles 84 billion calls a year-everything from kings, queens, and presidents to the scum of the earth.
Lily Tomlin
37.
No matter how cynical you become, it's never enough to keep up.
Lily Tomlin
38.
We are people with lives, not consumers with lifestyles.
Lily Tomlin
39.
Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.
Lily Tomlin
40.
Well, if I can be of any help at all, you are in worse trouble than I thought.
Lily Tomlin
41.
If trying harder doesn't work, try softer.
Lily Tomlin
42.
Being a New Yorker is never having to say you are sorry.
Lily Tomlin
43.
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.
Lily Tomlin
44.
When we speak to God, we call it prayer; when God speaks back, we call it psychosis!
Lily Tomlin
45.
To me, "sexual freedom" means freedom from having to have sex.
Lily Tomlin
46.
Remember we're all in this alone.
Lily Tomlin
47.
Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse.
Lily Tomlin
48.
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.
Lily Tomlin
49.
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.
Lily Tomlin
50.
I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain.
Lily Tomlin
