Lily Tomlin Quotes on Career
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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.
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Jane took me to another level because she's truly a wonderful writer. I'd put things together in the past and struggled with them. And then I met Jane. ... I was doing my Edith Ann album in '71 - the album came out in '72. She'd done a thing on television called J.T. - it was about a kid in Harlem - and she won a Peabody for it. I later learned it was the first thing she'd ever written. It was written as an After School Special, but they played it in prime time - and they played it every year after that for about 25 years, or something. Anyway, I saw it and it was wonderful. It was poetic and sensitive and satiric and tender and funny and so many things compressed into this one hour. And I thought, 'Oh, God, this is exactly what I want in a monologue.' So I wrote Jane and asked her to help me do the Edith Ann album. I didn't hear from her for a while. Then, suddenly, about a week before I was supposed to go in and record, she sent me a lot of material. I persuaded her to come to California and help me produce it. Frankly, I was pretty taken with her as soon as I saw her. We just sort of clicked. We became a couple right away.
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The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.
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All my life, I've always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific.
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If I had known what it would be like to have it all... I might have been willing to settle for less.
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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.