When I was 9 or 10, I had a ten-cent business: I would walk your dog for a dime, go to the store for a dime, empty your garbage for a dime - and then I could use the money to buy tricks at the magic store.

- Lily Tomlin

We're all in this alone.

- Lily Tomlin

What if it's boring - or if it's not boring, it might be too revealing, or worse, it might be too revealing and still be boring.

- Lily Tomlin

Creating characters is just another way to express a type and put that type to use.

- Lily Tomlin

I was always drawn to more the social-expression-of-culture types.

- Lily Tomlin

If you read a lot of books, you're considered well-read. But if you watch a lot of TV, you're not considered well-viewed.

- Lily Tomlin

Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse.

- Lily Tomlin

You don't really need to get married, but marriage is awfully nice. Everybody I know who got married, they say it really makes a difference. They feel very, very happy about it.

- Lily Tomlin

But there are too many people that make so much money at the cost of lives of other humans and for no reason but to make the money.

- Lily Tomlin

You know being relevant or coming up with something interesting, funny to say about what's current is just as hard as it might ever be depending on the serendipity of it all.

- Lily Tomlin

I guess that's one of the reasons that you do it - work all the time - because it's sort of a high to find something that really works.

- Lily Tomlin

Many times I sit back and say, 'I can't believe that this is my life!' Other times, I feel self-satisfied. I mean, there's a lot to be proud and thankful for but, nonetheless, it's just a life!

- Lily Tomlin

I think 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

Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet?

- Lily Tomlin

What I appreciate is acknowledging to the audience that I think they have brains.

- Lily Tomlin

If I had known what it would be like to have it all - I might have been willing to settle for less.

- Lily Tomlin

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

We are all in this together, by ourselves.

- Lily Tomlin

Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it.

- Lily Tomlin

I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain.

- Lily Tomlin