Tina Fey Improv Quotes & Sayings

After college, I knew I wanted to work in comedy, so the first thing I did was go to where the comedy was. I moved from Charlottesville to Chicago, because that's where The Second City and Improv Olympics are. You have to go wherever you need to go to study what interests you. — Tina Fey

I moved to Chicago in 1992 to study improv and it was everything I wanted it to be. It was like a cult. People ate, slept, and definitely drank improv. They worked at crappy day jobs just to hand over their money for improv classes. Eager young people in khakis and polo shirts were willing to do whatever teachers like Del Close and Martin de Maat told them to. In retrospect, it may actually have been a cult. — Tina Fey

Harvard is Classical Military Theory, Improv is Vietnam — Tina Fey

Don't get stuck on a business plan just because it was your business plan. — Ryan Kavanaugh

I haven't always been this weak person; this broken woman. I used to dream, and when I did, I dreamt big. I had plans, plans of a future so bright it would blind you. I can still remember the day those dreams, those grand plans, and that future as bright as the sun went poof. — Harper Sloan

I thought grandmothers had to like you. It's a law or something. — Mary E. Pearson

Natasha, with a vigorous turn from her heel on to her toe, walked over to the middle of the room and stood still ... Natasha took the first note, her throat swelled, her bosom heaved, a serious expression came into her face. She was thinking of no one and of nothing at that moment, and from her smiling mouth poured forth notes, those notes that anyone can produce at the same intervals, and hold for the same length of time, yet a thousand times leave us cold, and the thousand and first time they set us thrilling and weeping. — Leo Tolstoy

The thing that always fascinated me about improv is that it's basically a happy accident that you think you're initiating. — Tina Fey

Kay Cannon was a woman I'd known from the Chicago improv world. A beautiful, strong midwestern gal who had played lots of sports and run track in college, Kay had submitted a good writing sample, but I was more impressed by her athlete's approach to the world. She has a can-do attitude, a willingness to learn through practice, and she was comfortable being coached. Her success at the show is a testament to why all parents should make their daughters pursue team sports instead of pageants. Not that Kay couldn't win a beauty pageant - she could, as long as for the talent competition she could sing a karaoke version of 'Redneck Woman' while shooting a Nerf rifle. — Tina Fey

You know you can't hope yourself a better life - you must take yourself there. — Helen Gurley Brown

I wouldn't say I'm a mummy's girl, but I have grown to have a tremendous appreciation of her as a woman. I was very much a daddy's girl. — Gwyneth Paltrow

When you can hear a spider walk across the floor, you know it's time to keep your socks on. Thank God for insecticide. — H.P. Lovecraft

None is offended but by himselfe. — George Herbert

Life is improvisation. All of those [improv] classes were like church to me. The training had seeped into me and changed who I am. — Tina Fey

Maintaining boundaries is hard. That's why I strongly prefer the physical separation of work and home. — Karen Finerman

Being in charge isn't always about telling people what to do. Sometimes, it's about knowing when to step out of the way of people who know what they're doing. — Robert Jordan

In improv there are no mistakes, only beautiful happy accidents. And many of the world's greatest discoveries have been by accident. — Tina Fey