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If you can't be direct, why be?

Lily Tomlin

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Lily Tomlin
Age: 85
Born: 1939
Born: September 1
Actress
Film Actor
Screenwriter
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Voice Actor
Writer
Detroit
Michigan
Mary Jean Tomlin
Mary Jean Lily Tomlin
Direct

More quotes by Lily Tomlin

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Creating characters is just another way to express a type and put that type to use.
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I wonder what it would be like if we all became what we wanted to be when we grew up? I mean, imagine a world filled with nothing but firemen, cowboys, nurses and ballerinas.
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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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Language was invented because of the deep human need to complain.
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If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library?
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No matter how cynical I get, I can't keep up.
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I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.
Lily Tomlin
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I try to be cynical, but it's so hard to keep up.
Lily Tomlin
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Being a New Yorker is never having to say you are sorry.
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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
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Maybe if people started to listen, history would stop repeating itself.
Lily Tomlin
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Thank God kids never mean well
Lily Tomlin
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I wanted to be a stage actress. I wanted to be a New York actress and have a community with other actors. I didn't want to get famous I always thought getting famous was a drag on you.
Lily Tomlin
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I mean yes to act out something or take chances in the performance is one thing. But in terms of a camera, whatever's captured is captured so that's a little more daunting.
Lily Tomlin
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Sexual freedom and liberation has to be of your own making. I'm stunned when I hear about friends' children, ten or twelve years old giving blow jobs. I just don't like the girls being used or exploited in that way. It's just indiscriminate sexual relating. It's just the isolated things.
Lily Tomlin
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The whole idea of being in captivity in such limited space, especially in a zoo, causes elephants to suffer. They develop all kinds of foot diseases. They die. They get cysts. Not only is it painful, it eventually kills them.
Lily Tomlin
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If life is so meaningless, then why are we always bringing it up?
Lily Tomlin
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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
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What I appreciate is acknowledging to the audience that I think they have brains.
Lily Tomlin
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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