• “I’m more of a writer than an actor, and I used to say that I’m mostly an improviser, though I haven’t improvised in a while.”
• “I definitely have no illusions-the writing is what I’m better at. I love performing with my friends, stuff I helped create. But I wouldn’t really want a lifestyle where I go around and audition and try to get jobs.”
• “If you want to make an audience laugh, you dress a man up like an old lady and push her down the stairs. If you want to make comedy writers laugh, you push an actual old lady down the stairs.”
• “I was the editor of the school newspaper and in drama club and choir, so I was not a popular girl in the traditional sense, but I think I was known for being relatively scathing.”
• “I was nerdy in high school. I was not a popular girl in the traditional sense, but I think I was known for being relatively scathing. At the time, I thought I was being scathing to the people who really deserved it, but in retrospect, I probably was a little bit mean.”
• “I like to crack the jokes now and again, but it’s only because I struggle with math.”
• “Somewhere around the 5th or 7th grade, I figured out that I could ingratiate myself to people by making them laugh. Essentially, I was just trying to make them like me, but after awhile, it became part of my identity.”
• “The first time I went to see a Second City show, I was in awe of everything. I just wanted to touch the same stage that Gilda Radner had walked on. It was sacred ground.”
• “Yeah, it’s tough being smart and sexy, too. I have to say, I’m really not that attractive. Until I met my husband, I could not get a date. I promise you it’s true. My husband Jeff Richmond saw a diamond in the rough and took me in.”
• “Every year there’s one person on People Magazine’s 100 Most beautiful People-list who you think ‘How the hell did that person get on the list?’ This year I’m proud to be that person.”

On 30 Rock:

• “I used to do plays in Chicago… for literally, two people. So when they tell me, ‘Bad news, only 6 million people watched the show,’ I’m like, ‘That sounds pretty good!’”
• “We wanted to make sure that everything we did with Liz Lemon rang true on some level – to me or to one of the other women in the room. And we did kind of know we were going into her as… well, as the opposite of a Sex and the City character. She’s not about wish fulfillment or fantasy.”
• “A portion of 30 Rock is autobiographical. Our world is a little more bent, but the relationships reflect the kind of over familiarity and competitiveness mixed with friendship mixed with contempt. It’s a very, um, specific kind of workplace. The one thing about our show was that we could never portray writers as heroic. They’re the least heroic, most cowardly, lazy group of people you could spend time with.”
• 30 Rock‘s fast-talking style comes from the fact that our show needs to be two and a half minutes longer than it is – I’m trying to fit five pounds’ worth of ideas into a two-pound bag.”
• “Liz Lemon doesn’t say anything that I wouldn’t at least agree with.”

On impersonating Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live:

• “I want to be done playing this lady Nov. 5. So, if anybody can help me be done playing this lady Nov. 5, that would be good for me.”
• “I was resistant to acknowledge there was a resemblance. But my kid saw her and said, ‘That’s Mommy’, so I thought, ‘Oh, great’!”
• “I had a great time doing Sarah Palin but it was one of the strangest things that’s ever happened to me. You can grow up thinking, ‘I want to be on Saturday Night Live one day’ or ‘I want to be in a movie some day’, but you never think, ‘I hope there’s a politician who looks just like me.’”