Annaleigh Ashford Quotes

The women doing comedy do not even think of themselves as 'female' comedians.

Oh all the time when Victoria Wood and I did our series. There were people asking 'Can women be funny?' People still ask that. It's like asking: 'Can women breathe in and out?'

I think that's important to women in comedy, that we get a lot of the good lines and you're not just the girlfriend or the sister.

I don't feel there are enough women artists out there who are saying anything of tremendous relevance.

I don't know why all three, my comedic idols are... women.

There are so many actresses I want to write for. I see them, and I think, 'Why is she not playing that lead? What's happened to that actress?' I think all I can do is to write parts for women, to say, 'Keep going, keep acting, because there are parts for you. There will be those plays.'

There are a lot of women - directors, producers, writers - involved in my career. They are all interested in telling good stories, and good stories involve men and women.

If you think about how many headlining female comics are out there, you could say 15, maybe 20?

When people say, 'There aren't enough women on panel shows,' the answer is to make the host a woman.

We need more female voices to come out there and do comedy.

It is really a sad state of affairs if I am still the only commercially successful woman director. We need a lot more commercially viable women, not only in direction.

There aren't as many women in my industry in comedy as there should and could and hopefully will be, but it is interesting growing up watching a woman in a male-dominated industry and kind of, like, plowing ahead.

I know so many women, comic geniuses. Where are the parts?

Sundance is the only hand that feeds for women directors.

Comedy is just one of the many professions that women are taking over.

I think a lot of studios today are run by women, and we are entering a time when a lot of women have evolved in Second City and Upright Citizens Brigade and wanted to become writers and comedians.

I think there have always been funny women, from Carol Burnett to Joan Rivers. When the audience sees a woman, they innately know she's worked twice as hard to get there, she's had to prove that she can be the leader, first, and then be funny on top of it. She has to emit a confidence that she's in control.

One of the things that would be great is to some day have so many women comedy writers that we wouldn't say there's just one type of female humor. There's lots.

Get more women producers, writers, directors. Why should we expect men to do it for us? They can't.

It's hard enough to be a lady writer. Doubly hard to be a funny lady writer.

There are days when I think the National Endowment for the Arts should issue a quota system for the production of plays by women - especially when you realize women buy 70 percent of all theater tickets.

I think it helps in any comedy room for a woman to have very strong, respected convictions, because then it opens the door up a little bit for other women to have that.

The question I always ask is: 'Where are all the women directors in America?' You know, where's the female Martin Scorsese, the female David Lynch?

I cannot believe that in all the years that there have been female stand-ups, there has never been a show just for them.

There should be more women directing; I think there's just not the awareness that it's really possible.