Quotes by Amy Poehler

“Improvisation is almost like the retarded cousin in the comedy world. Weve been trying forever to get improvisation on TV. Its just like stand-up. Its best when its just left alone. It doesnt translate always on TV. Its best live.”

“You tell somebody youre an improviser and they think youre doing Random Acts of Comedy and its just like, a bastardization of what I think is the purest form of art. People still dont get it, they still dont understand that...well, number one, its hard to prove to people that youre improvising when youre on TV. They dont believe it.”

“We want to extend our adolescence as long as we can,”

“I.O. was kind of like comedy high school. Everybody knows each other, dated each other, performed together, lived together - so theres a lot of history among a lot of people.”

“It is completely improvised. We have had no meetings backstage, we have not written anything, and everything you see onstage tonight is being made up on the spot,”

“Everything looked like you could run around in it – you could catch a bus!”

“We want to extend our adolescence as long as we can. I.O., Upright Citizens Brigade and SNL have enabled me to do that.”

“Update”

“I also think if youre an actor and you can improvise, when you go on an audition and you can improvise youre just a genius. If you can, you know, take a Tide commercial and you can just say one funny line thats not in the commercial they think youre a genius.”

“I think the idea of ensemble should really be re-enforced and thats staying with the same group of people. In college troupes the turnover can be so fast and so furious that you dont ever really get to develop as a group, like who has different roles in the group and how is it working with all these people. I think people need to be encouraged to stick together.”

It’s never overreacting to ask for what you want and need.

You will never climb Career Mountain and get to the top and shout, ‘I made it!’ You will rarely feel done or complete or even successful. Most people I know struggle with that complicated soup of feeling slighted on one hand and like a total fraud on the other. Our ego is a monster that loves to sit at the head of the table, and I have learned that my ego is just as rude and loud and hungry as everyone else’s. It doesn’t matter how much you get; you are left wanting more. Success is filled with MSG.

I want to be around people that do things. I don’t want to be around people anymore that judge or talk about what people do. I want to be around people that dream and support and do things.

However, if you do start crying in an argument and someone asks why, you can always say, Im just crying because of how wrong you are.

It’s very hard to have ideas. It’s very hard to put yourself out there, it’s very hard to be vulnerable, but those people who do that are the dreamers, the thinkers and the creators. They are the magic people of the world.

If you are lucky, there is a moment in your life when you have some say as to what your currency is going to be. I decided early on it was not going to be my looks.

Your career and your passion dont always match up.

Dating in highschool was very different. Boys suddenly went up your shirt, girls were expected to give blow jobs and be sexy. You had to be hot, but not a slut. You had to be into sex, but never have it. Except when your boyfriend wanted it. If you had sex you had to keep it a secret, but also be very good at it. Except not too good, because this better be your first time.

When your children arrive, the best you can hope for is that they break open everything about you. Your mind floods with oxygen. Your heart becomes a room with wide-open windows. You laugh hard every day. You think about the future and read about global warming. You realize how nice it feels to care about someone else more than yourself. And gradually, through this heart-heavy openness and these fresh eyes, you start to see the world a little more. Maybe you start to care a teeny tiny bit more about what happens to everyone in it.

I swear, if I could eat my children, I would. Id consume them like some beast in a Hieronymus Bosch painting, but in a friendlier, more momlike way. Their little bodies make me salivate. It takes everything I have not to swallow them whole.