Mary Jean “Lily” Tomlin is an American actress, comedian, writer, singer, and producer. Tomlin started her career as a stand-up comedian as well as performing Off-Broadway during the 1960s. Her breakout role was on the variety show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In from 1969 until 1973. She currently stars as Frankie Bergstein on the Netflix series Grace and Frankie, which debuted in 2015, and has earned her nominations for four Primetime Emmy Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Golden Globe Award. This Lily Tomlin quotes will motivate you.
Best Lily Tomlin Quotes
- “I always wondered why somebody doesn’t do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “No matter how cynical you become, it’s never enough to keep up.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking, honest Americans. It’s the other lousy two percent that gets all the publicity. But then, we elected them.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “Success is a ladder that cannot be climbed with your hands in your pocket.” ~ Lily Tomlin
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The road to success is always under construction” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “Maybe if people started to listen, history would stop repeating itself.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “We are all in this together, by ourselves.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “The best mind-altering drug is the truth.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “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
- “Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.” ~ Lily Tomlin
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“If trying harder doesn’t work, try softer.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “I can handle reality in small doses, but as a lifestyle, it’s much too confining.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “Well, if I can be of any help at all, you are in worse trouble than I thought.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “The road to success is always under construction.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “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
- “Being a New Yorker is never having to say you are sorry.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “You are what you think … geez, that’s frightening.” ~ Lily Tomlin
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“For fast-acting relief try slowing down.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “The start to a better world is the belief that it is possible.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “The formula for water is H2O. Is the formula for an ice cube H2O squared?” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “Exercise is for people who can’t handle drugs or alcohol.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “Don’t be afraid of missing opportunities. Behind every failure is an opportunity somebody wishes they had missed.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “I worry that the person who thought up Muzak may be thinking up something else.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “What goes up must come down. But don’t expect it to come down where you can find it.” ~ Lily Tomlin
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“Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “We are people with lives, not consumers with lifestyles.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “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
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“Sometimes I feel like a figment of my own imagination.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “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
- “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 Quotes
- “There’s so much plastic in this culture that vinyl leopard skin is becoming an endangered synthetic.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “If I had known what it would be like to have it all – I might have been willing to settle for less.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “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
- “There will be sex after death, we just won’t be able to feel it.” ~ Lily Tomlin
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“Why isn’t there a special name for the tops of your feet?” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “Did you know, in the entire universe, we are the only intelligent life forms thought to have a Miss Universe contest?” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “After all, in private, we’re all misfits” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “There’s nothing sadder than getting to the end of your life and saying, ‘I didn’t do it right’.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “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
- “Truth is, I’ve always been selling out. The difference is that in the past, I looked like I had integrity because there were no buyers.” ~ Lily Tomlin
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“When we speak to God, we call it prayer; when God speaks back, we call it psychosis!” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “If beauty is truth, why don’t women go to the library to have their hair done?” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “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
- “You can’t expect insights, even the big ones, to make you suddenly understand everything. But I figure: Hey it’s a step in the right direction if they leave you confused in a deeper way.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “If you have a dog or a cat, you know how developed they can be. How sensitive, how aware. They suffer. We all do.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “Creating characters is just another way to express a type and put that type to use.” ~ Lily Tomlin
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“Even when I’m being funny, I’m deadly serious.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “Having a real public outlet is how you imprint something for yourself. It’s just a matter of timing. It’s like you’ve marked your territory.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “To me, “sexual freedom” means freedom from having to have sex.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “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
- “The thing that most distresses me is whenever I see things over sexualized, I worry about young girls. Some of the fall out of the feminist movement is that it made younger and younger girls more sexually available. It’s part of the philosophy, be your own person and be free. But, girls are so over sexualized in this culture.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “The phone company handles 84 billion calls a year-everything from kings, queens, and presidents to the scum of the earth.” ~ Lily Tomlin
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“When I’ve had a meltdown, people will say to me, “Well, you failed to keep your sense of humor.”” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “I have always felt that humor was a wonderful vehicle to let us become connected with each other and ourselves… I try to portray the similarities and polarities in men and women so that we can acknowledge and embrace our collective consciousness.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the phone company.” ~ Lily Tomlin
- “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
