Lily Tomlin Quotes

It's not like I had big dreams to go to California and become an actor. I loved doing my shows at school and community theater, and I probably would have settled in New York because it was closer. I was going to go to NYU.

My one ambition was to go to Broadway, and I never gave up on that dream.

I came from Texas, I was studying theater at NYU, and I thought for sure that my lot in life would be to get the best bartending job I could find and do theater in New York. And that was a good life.

I came out of drama school thinking I'd do some theatre, maybe some television, and maybe, someday, a film.

I spent a lot of time in the trenches in New York doing a lot of off-off-off Broadway theater.

Being back on stage in New York, off-Broadway - I mean, that's an actor's dream.

I did not want to be an actor because my whole family did it-going into the family business was the last thing I wanted to do.

I never, ever wanted to be an actor.

I'm really loving acting. I want this as a career. I'll still write music and collaborate with people, but I'm focused on the acting path.

I wanted to be a theater actress, and initially, I wanted to work in musical theater

I grew up in the theater with my mom and that's how I knew I wanted to be an actor in the first place.

I had interest in acting. I started as a drama major in college. I got to school and said, "What am I going to do with this?" But I didn't know anybody in the business, and it seemed like - I don't know. I had a teacher who said "Less than 1 percent of you will ever make a living being an actor." That was how we opened the semester.

When you're a drama student, I think the most you hope for is to make a living out of acting.

I can't imagine myself not being an actor.

I do love acting. It's my second love and I would love to do more.

My oldest sister was an actress living in NYC by the time I was ten, and desperately wanted to be the one in charge of the words.

There are a lot of actors that are more talented than me at Second City who quit it before they even got to a paying status. Weird luck. I had no other option.

Paris is the playwright's delight. New York is the home of directors. London, however, is the actor's city, the only one in the world. In London, actors are given their head.

I hope to make acting my career for the rest of my life, if I can. If acting doesn't work out, I'd love to produce or direct or write. I just want to stay in this business, definitely. That would be my number one thing. I always want to be an actress.

When I was younger, all I wanted to do was be a singer, and then I got into a great acting class in New York and became obsessed with that.

When I moved to New York out of college, that was my goal. To be a stage actress. And to do dramatic works. Like 'Madea', and 'Night, Mother', and 'Sam Shepard', and all that kind of stuff. That's what I really wanted to do.

What I'd really like to do is do a film or two a year and then do theater in New York the rest of the year.

My mother had been an actress and we came from that world in New York, the theater world and the downtown sort of theater scene, and so I guess we didn't really have what you'd call like a Hollywood kind of life at all.

I'm a theater guy at heart; I love the theater. I was lucky enough to spend a good decade and a half in the New York theater community.

I'd definitely like to widen my film range. I mean, I'd love to do some theater.