Yes Please

by Amy Poehler

I got to cast myself.

I was never too this or not enough that.

I remember standing onstage and it being one of the few times that something felt perfectly whole.

When you are pregnant you can get away with a lot of shit. Women really are at their most dangerous during this time.

It takes years as a woman to unlearn what you have been taught to be sorry for. It takes years to find your voice and seize your real estate.

I don’t like it when bratty, privileged old white guys speak to me like I am their mouthy niece.

I had spent so much of my twenties in a state of delayed adolescence

You can read people’s energies better,

Gone are the days (hopefully) when you take everything personally and internalize everyone’s behavior.

I am interested in people who swim in the deep end. I

The pressure of “What are you going to do?” makes everybody feel like they haven’t done anything yet.

When people are nervous and put on the spot, they tend to show you who they really are.

I didn’t really know who I was, but improv had taught me that I could be anyone. I didn’t have to wait to be cast—I could give myself the part.

I would read terrible stories to punish myself for my lucky life.

The biggest lie and biggest crime is that we all do this alone and look down on people who don’t.

His famous last words to Charna were “I’m tired of being the funniest person in the room.”

It’s important to know when it’s time to turn in your kazoo.

As I get older I get a real pleasure from maintaining boundaries with strangers. I

Quick note here: Everybody wants you to share your MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT all the time, and I am here to tell you that you don’t have

This was the beginning of a long life of attempting to be much older than I was.

A bossy woman is someone who cares and commits and is a natural leader.

There are so many people in the world with so little. Who cares why you decide to help?

I was once again moved by her ability to steer into the curve. Jane was a big-wave rider. She didn’t make the mistake that most of us make, which is to close our eyes and hope the waves will go away or miss us or hit someone else. She dove in, headfirst. That night, I read

A story carves deep grooves into our brains each time we tell it. But we aren’t one story. We can change our stories. We can write our own.

I sat next to the TV and transcribed The Jerk in blue composition notebooks. I thought about comedy. I thought about being a writer.

I’m not on social media. It’s just not my thing. There is an amount of self-disclosure and self-promotion involved that keeps me away. (Says the woman writing a book about herself.)

But I like to do things I am good at, and I am sure that having a bigger online presence would only get me in some shit, especially with my history of texting the wrong things to the wrong people.

Technology can often feel like a club that didn’t accept me, and so I punish it by ignoring it, which in turn often hurts me.

The only way we will survive is by being kind. The only way we can get by in this world is through the help we receive from others. No one can do it alone, no matter how great the machines are.