Tina Fey Quotes

I made sure that instead of people making fun of me, like every comedian probably says, I made fun of myself first so they would get distracted and just laugh. I was pretty brutally picked on for a while growing up. It was always the really pretty girls, the hot girls and then there was me. So I had to do something to get any sort of attention.

I was the fat kid, so as a defense mechanism, I was the jokester.

At school I was very shy and coincidentally inherited the title 'little miss worry guts,' and that was just among the staff. I learned early on that I could make people laugh, and as my small neat body betrayed me by growing to dizzying heights, I used it as a tool that translated into complete slap-stick comedy.

I was a timid little guy when I was a kid. I used humor as a defense; I became the class clown. But deep inside, I felt real vulnerable.

I was one of the people that always got chosen last, and I think I bulked up my comedy bone to make up for my lack of friends.

Comedy, we may say, is society protecting itself - with a smile.

Because I was a shy and awkward child, I used humour to deflect attention. It was a controlling mechanism. Because I could use it to control my image.

I giggle when I put myself down. It's just funny to me.

Until I was about 14, I was a fat boy, or at least I looked like a fat boy. I think that being funny was a bit of a defence mechanism for me, so I ended up being a bit of a joker.

I was a pretty nerdy kid. I was pretty nerdy. I'm still kind of nerdy. I have all of the worst qualities of being a nerd - all of the affect and none of the smarts. I'm a useless nerd! That's pretty bad.

When you're small, you either are funny, or you get beat up a lot.

The only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping and showing off his shortcomings.

All of my jokes were about not being able to meet anybody. I didn't have any insight into anything - even my own insecurities.

It's better to make fun of yourself because you've always got someone around to make fun of, and they can't sue you.

I'm part Bridget Jones, part Larry David. I'm shy; I'm prude.

I constantly peed in my pants up until the 8th grade and wore an extra-large sailor uniform from kindergarten to 8th grade because my mom was scared I'd grow out of it. So I learned to make fun of myself at school and summer camp.

I was very shy and had low self-esteem; the only way to stop yourself getting beaten up was to turn your hand to being an idiot. At the beginning, it was survival, and after that, it became second nature.

Sometimes the stuff I come up with is so silly I feel like I need to apologize at the end of every one of them.

Jewish introspection and Jewish humor is a way of surviving . . . if you're not handsome and you're not athletic and you're not rich, there's still one last hope with girls, which is being funny.

It's hard for me to take myself too seriously when I'm constantly experiencing firsthand what an incredible gimp I can be.

If you can't laugh at yourself, you're cooked!

It's not terribly dignified to have anyone seeing one laugh at one's own material.

If you can really laugh at yourself loud and hard every time you fall, people will think you're drunk.

Comics who grew up surviving their childhood by being able to be the first one to make the joke about their weight or their hairy arms - like me - whatever they're insecure about, whatever they're apologizing for, that becomes their strength.

Nobody can make more fun of me than I already make of myself.