Talk:Lily Tomlin

Unsourced
Wikiquote no longer allows unsourced quotations, and they are in process of being removed from our pages (see Wikiquote:Limits on quotations); but if you can provide a reliable, precise and verifiable source for any quote on this list please move it to Lily Tomlin. --Antiquary 18:25, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past.


 * I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework.


 * I may be schizophrenic, but I'll always have each other.


 * I never officially came out in any kind of really public way. I just always lived very simply and openly, but the press has never made a big fuss about me or said anything to me... In some ways I don't even identify myself in any kind of limited way. I don't want to. I wish none of us had to. I wish we were just people.


 * I worry that the person who thought up Muzak may be thinking up something else.


 * Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then — we elected them.


 * Thank God kids never mean well.


 * The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat.


 * There will be sex after death; we just won't be able to feel it.


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


 * We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation.


 * 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.



As "Ernestine" the telephone operator

 * One ringy dingy... two ringy dingy.


 * Have I reached the party to whom I am speaking?


 * This quote is at the top of a page at the official Lily Tomlin website:

http://www.lilytomlin.com/wordpress2/lilytomlin/lily-tomlins-characters/ernestine/ [accessed 11/27/2018]


 * The phone company handles 84 billion calls a year, everything from kings, queens, and presidents to the scum of the earth.


 * This quote is incorrect. The full quote is: "Here at the phone company we handle 84 billion calls a year, everything from kings, queens, and presidents to the scum of the earth."


 * The quote comes from a fake ad on NBC's Saturday Night, Season 2, Episode 1, September 18, 1976. It may be found on an accurate unofficial transcript here: https://snltranscripts.jt.org/76/76aphonecompany.phtml [accessed Nov 26, 2018]. The "filmed message" is at 27.14 to 28.10 in the Hulu video recording of the episode, and the exact quote is spoken at 20.22-20.30: https://www.hulu.com/watch/feeb1080-a1db-4a63-8adf-64aa0fb68e3c [accessed Nov 27, 2018] (The show only became Saturday Night Live when NBC bought the rights to the name from ABC in 1977, following the cancellation of Howard Cosell's ABC show Saturday Night Live.)


 * How may I, in all humble servitude, be of assistance?


 * We're the phone company. We don't care; we don't have to.


 * This quote comes from a fake ad on NBC's Saturday Night, Season 2, Episode 1, September 18, 1976. It may be found on an accurate unofficial transcript here: https://snltranscripts.jt.org/76/76aphonecompany.phtml [accessed Nov 26, 2018]. The "filmed commercial" is at 27.14 to 28.10 in the Hulu video recording of the episode, and the exact quote is spoken at 28.06-28.09, and written on a video banner at 28.10: https://www.hulu.com/watch/feeb1080-a1db-4a63-8adf-64aa0fb68e3c [accessed Nov 27, 2018]

(The show only became Saturday Night Live when NBC bought the rights to the name from ABC in 1977, following the cancellation of Howard Cosell's ABC show Saturday Night Live.)


 * What's that Mr. Veedle? Privileged information?... that's so cute.


 * You're dealing with the phone company, Mr. Veedle. We are not bound by city, state, or federal regulations. We are omnipotent.


 * You are not dealing with just anyone's fool. I am a high-school graduate.


 * Don't hang up. You've angered me, and when you anger me you anger the phone company and all the power necessary to tie up your lines for the next fifty years. Do I make myself clear?