Top 350 Amy Poehler Quotes (2024 Update)
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251. “I wondered if I was just doing this as some kind of ego trip. Then I decided I didn’t care. Not enough is made of the fact that being of service makes you feel good. I think nonprofits should guarantee that giving your time and money makes your skin better and your ass smaller. Why not? There are so many people in the world with so little. Who cares why you decide to help?”

— Amy Poehler

252. “Style is obviously important in Haiti. A lot of people wore bright colors and neatly pressed shirts. The taxis and billboards were beautiful. Haiti is not afraid of color. And texture. And depth. The young people looked fierce and bored. They looked like pure energy. There was true aesthetic but also a palpable darkness. I mean, let’s get real. Kids are slaves here. Kids are bought and sold and put to work.”

— Amy Poehler

253. “Career is the thing that will not fill you up and never make you truly whole. Depending on your career is like eating cake for breakfast and wondering why you start crying an hour later.”

— Amy Poehler

254. “You get better at understanding what people mean and how it can be different from what they say.”

— Amy Poehler

255. “Dancing is the great equalizer. It gets people out of their heads and into their bodies. I think if you can dance and be free and not embarrassed you can rule the world.”

— Amy Poehler

256. “Some people give their demon so much room that there is no space in their head or bed for love. They feed their demon and it gets really strong and then it makes them stay in abusive relationships or starve their beautiful bodies. But sometimes, you get a little older and get a little bored of the demon. Through good therapy and friends and self-love you can practice treating the demon like a hacky, annoying cousin.”

— Amy Poehler

257. “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. Melissa and Wendy and Jane and I joked about the Golden Globes and gave each other fake awards. I gave Melissa “Best Person in Charge.” She gave me “Most Famous and Most Normal.” This meant and means a great deal.”

— Amy Poehler

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

— Amy Poehler

259. “Apologies have nothing to do with you. They are balloons in the sky.”

— Amy Poehler

260. “I haven’t lived a full enough life to look back on, but I am too old to get by on being pithy and cute. I know enough now to know I know nothing. I am slugging away every day, just like you.”

— Amy Poehler

261. “It’s just that sometimes anger should just stay anger and tears can change anger to something else. However, if you do start crying in an argument and someone asks why, you can always say, “I’m just crying because of how wrong you are.”

— Amy Poehler

262. “I wonder if this love will crack open my chest and split me in half. It’s scary, this love.”

— Amy Poehler

263. “Back then there was this wonderful thing called “twilight sleep” where women were given anesthesia at the onset of labor and woke up with a baby. Today “twilight sleep” is when you pass out on your bed while looking at paparazzi photos of Robert Pattinson eating an omelet.”

— Amy Poehler

264. “You are six or twelve or fifteen and you look in the mirror and you hear a voice so awful and mean that it takes your breath away. It tells you that you are fat and ugly and you don’t deserve love. And the scary part is the demon is your own voice.”

— Amy Poehler

265. “Anyway, this other nurse and I used to jump around in our underwear and kiss each other for fun. Oh wait, what I meant to say was that I answered phones and filed things.”

— Amy Poehler

266. “Instead of asking students to “declare their major” we should ask students to “list what they will do anything to avoid”. It just makes a lot more sense.”

— Amy Poehler

267. “Acting lets you escape the real world and make out with people you are not married to. It lets you live in the skin of another person and run away from the person you actually are.”

— Amy Poehler

268. “Remember, your career is a bad boyfriend. It likes you when you don’t depend on it.”

— Amy Poehler

269. “Sometimes I worry that not enough people hate me.”

— Amy Poehler

270. “It’s called Yes Please because it is the constant struggle and often the right answer. Can we figure out what we want, ask for it, and stop talking? Yes please. Is being vulnerable a power position? Yes please. Am I allowed to take up space? Yes please. Would you like to be left alone? Yes please.”

— Amy Poehler

271. “I was trapped in an awful spiral of insecure narcissism.”

— Amy Poehler

272. “I have realized that mystery is what keeps people away, and I’ve grown tired of smoke and mirrors. I yearn for the clean, well-lighted place.”

— Amy Poehler

273. “When I yell at the dads drinking coffee and looking at their phones at the playground while their seven-year-olds play on the preschool monkey bars, I feel like I am fully alive.”

— Amy Poehler

274. “When you have a comfortable and loving middle-class family, sometimes you yearn for a dance on the edge. This can lead to an overactive imagination, but it is also the reason why kids in Montana do meth.”

— Amy Poehler

275. “Bernie Mac was the sweetest and kindest.”

— Amy Poehler

276. “It doesn’t mean I am afraid of conflict or don’t know how to stand up for myself. I am getting to a place right in the middle where I feel good about exactly how much I apologize. 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.”

— Amy Poehler

277. “I will say it again. Ambivalence is key. You have to care about your work but not about the result. You have to care about how good you are and how good you feel, but not about how good people think you are or how good people think you look.”

— Amy Poehler

278. “It also reminds you of the simple truths that we purposely forget every day or else we would never get out of bed. Things like, nothing lasts forever and relationships can end. The best that can happen is you learn a little more about what you can handle and you stay soft through the pain. Perhaps you feel a little wiser. Maybe your experience can be of help to others.”

— Amy Poehler

279. “Dancing is the great equalizer. It gets people out of their heads and into their bodies.”

— Amy Poehler

280. “I had already made a decision early on that I would be a plain girl with lots of personality, and accepting it made everything a lot easier. If you are lucky, there is a moment in your life when you have some say as to what your currency is going to be.”

— Amy Poehler

281. “I am a tea girl. Coffee smells so good but my stomach doesn’t like it.”

— Amy Poehler

282. “Be nice, tell your woman she is hot, never shame her, and never hurt her.”

— Amy Poehler

283. “While I was at Carlucci I learned how to dust a tiramisu and pair cordials. I learned having a pocket filled with cash is a dangerous thing. I learned that I was getting way too good at a job that was not my life’s passion.”

— Amy Poehler

284. “Everyone lies about writing. They lie about how easy it is or how hard it was. They perpetuate a romantic idea that writing is some beautiful experience that takes place in an architectural room filled with leather novels and chai tea.”

— Amy Poehler

285. “Adventure and danger can be good for your heart and soul. Violence and desperation are brutal things to search out. Why search out the horror? It’s around us in real ways every day. I’m talking to you, the people who make that movie “The Human Centipede”. No more “Human Centipede” movies please. No more movies about people’s mouths being sewn onto other people’s butts. The whole idea of making and watching a movie like that makes me want to take a ten-year nap.”

— Amy Poehler

286. “Treat your career like a bad boyfriend.”

— Amy Poehler

287. “Gavin de Becker talks about this in his wonderful book The Gift Of Fear. He talks about how the word “no” should be the “end of discussion, not the beginning of a negotiation”.”

— Amy Poehler

288. “Wordsworth also said that the best part of a person’s life is “his little, nameless, unremembered, acts of kindness and of love.” I.”

— Amy Poehler

289. “Patti Smith was amazing. She talked about politics and sang like a soldier. She was so cool and interesting. She stomped around and spit onstage. Spitting is disgusting, but when Patti spits it looks like ballet.”

— Amy Poehler

290. “You could just watch your belly grow bigger and no one would be allowed to ask you about it and you would have your baby and a year later you would allow visitors to finally come and meet your little miracle.”

— Amy Poehler

291. “Stop whining about getting old. It’s a privilege.”

— Amy Poehler

292. “Every mother needs a wife. Some mothers’ wives are their mothers. Some mothers’ wives are their husbands. Some mothers’ wives are their friends and neighbors. Every working person needs someone to come home to and someone to come get them out of the home. Someone who asks questions about their day and maybe fixes them something to eat.”

— Amy Poehler

293. “Say no to an opportunity that may be slightly out of our comfort zone? Quiet our voice because we are worried it is not perfect? I believe great people do things before they are ready. This is America and I am allowed to have healthy self-esteem.”

— Amy Poehler

294. “I’m a moon junky. Every time I look at the moon I feel less alone and less afraid. I tell my boys that moonlight is a magic blanket and the stars above are campfires set by friendly aliens.”

— Amy Poehler

295. “Now on to politics. What’s the deal, guys? Seriously. I mean, come on. Get it together. It’s like, when are we going to wake up? It’s all crazy. Who’s with me. Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.”

— Amy Poehler

296. “You are all so good and I wish I were better. Now get out of here because I want to be where you are.”

— Amy Poehler

297. “Kiss every baby, and pet every dog. Walk slowly, and lie down when you’re tired. What’s next?”

— Amy Poehler

298. “If you are lucky, there is a moment in your life when you have some say as to what your currency is going to be. I decided early on it was not going to be my looks. I have spent a lifetime coming to terms with this idea and I would say I am about 15 to 20 percent there. Which I think is great progress.”

— Amy Poehler

299. “I love Boston, but we sound like idiots.”

— Amy Poehler

300. “A watched cervix never dilates.”

— Amy Poehler