Top 350 Amy Poehler Quotes (2026 Update)
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301. “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

302. “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

303. “Also, even though I’m bossy, I like being told what to do by people who are smarter and more interesting than me.”

— Amy Poehler

304. “I was a really good waitress. Waitressing takes a certain gusto. You need a good memory and an ability to connect with people fast. You have to learn how to treat the kitchen as well as you treat the customers. You have to figure out which crazy people to listen to and which crazy people to ignore. I loved waiting tables because when you cashed out at the end of the night your job was truly over. You wiped down your section and paid out your busboy and you knew your work was done.”

— Amy Poehler

305. “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

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

— Amy Poehler

307. “The lessons? Women are mighty. George Clooney loves bits. Doing something is often more fun than doing it alone. And you don’t always have to win to get the pudding.”

— Amy Poehler

308. “I think middle age begins once you start looking forward to eating dinner before six thirty, or when you call the cops when your next-door neighbor has a party.”

— Amy Poehler

309. “The biggest lie and biggest crime is that we all do this alone and look down on people who don’t. Can’t we all agree that more eyes on a kid is ultimately better?”

— Amy Poehler

310. “I do a weird thing when I am nervous where I tilt my head back like I am super confident. This is my attempt to fake it until I make it, or at the very least make it easier for someone to slit my throat.”

— Amy Poehler

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

— Amy Poehler

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

— Amy Poehler

313. “The sleep deprivation after children is so real. I liken it to what it must feel like to walk on the moon and to cry the whole time because you had heard that the moon was supposed to be great but in truth it totally sucks.”

— Amy Poehler

314. “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

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

— Amy Poehler

316. “A watched cervix never dilates.”

— Amy Poehler

317. “But I was eventually okay. And you will be okay too. Here’s why. I had already made a decision early on that I would be a plain girl with tons of personality, and accepting it made everything a lot easier.”

— Amy Poehler

318. “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

319. “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

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

— Amy Poehler

321. “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

322. “All of my lower-middle-class Boston issues rose to the surface. I don’t like it when bratty, privileged old white guys speak to me like I am their mouthy niece. I got that amazing feeling you get when you know you are going to lose it in the best, most self-righteous way. I just leaned back and yelled, “FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU.” Then I chased him as he tried to get away from me.”

— Amy Poehler

323. “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

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

— Amy Poehler

325. “People treat writing like it’s some elegant act but it’s usually lonely and isolating.”

— Amy Poehler

326. “Career is different. Career is the stringing together of opportunities and jobs. Mix in public opinion and past regrets. Add a dash of future panic and a whole lot of financial uncertainty.”

— Amy Poehler

327. “Sometimes this book stays in the present, other times I try to cut myself in half and count the rings. Occasionally I think about the future, but I try to do that sparingly because it usually makes me anxious.”

— Amy Poehler

328. “I was told I resembled a cartoon chicken, which is still true, especially after a rough weekend. My parents tell stories about my staring at them from the crib at all hours of the night. Sounds pretty creepy, right? A pale, bald and tiny baby bird peering out through the slats of its cage, challenging the adults to an all-night staring contest?”

— Amy Poehler

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

— Amy Poehler

330. “It’s a struggle for me to remain open,” she admits. “To not shut down because I’m defensive or scared or maybe my ego is getting in the way. And the other side of that is just believing that I belong where I am and deserve to take up space. I fight constantly between those two things, between not apologizing for what I want and staying vulnerable and creatively supple and not thinking I know better than everyone else.”

— Amy Poehler

331. “I don’t miss the frustration of youth, the anticipation of love and pain, the paralysis of choices still ahead. The pressure of “What are you going to do?” makes everybody feel like they haven’t done anything yet. Young people can remind us to take chances and be angry and stop our patterns. Old people can remind us to laugh more and get focused and make friends with our patterns. Young and old need to relax in the moment and live where they are.”

— Amy Poehler

332. “The best way I can explain a panic attack is that it’s the feeling of someone inside my body stacking it with books. The books continue to pile up and they make me feel like I can’t breathe.”

— Amy Poehler

333. “In my high school yearbook I was voted third runner-up for “Most Casual.” I never figured out if that meant most casual in dress or in overall manner. In any case, I didn’t come in first. I guess the two ahead of me wanted it less.”

— Amy Poehler

334. “The eighties were a strange time for teenage fashion. We wore silk blouses and shoulder pads, neon earrings and jodhpur pants. Come to think of it, our pants were especially weird. We also wore stirrup pants, parachute pants, and velvet knickers. It was a real experimental pant time.”

— Amy Poehler

335. “It can be hard, this life. Beautiful too.”

— Amy Poehler

336. “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

337. “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

338. “Apologies have nothing to do with you. They are balloons in the sky. They may never land. They may even choke a bird.”

— Amy Poehler

339. “Now everything is backed up on the cloud and you can find your phone if you lose it in a taxi. Don’t you realize it’s only a matter of time before our phones can FIND US?”

— Amy Poehler

340. “Now I just want to sit down and have someone perform my five favorite songs while I eat a light dinner and receive a simultaneous pedicure.”

— Amy Poehler

341. “And then you just do it. You just dig in and write it.”

— Amy Poehler

342. “Teenage bodies should be filled with Vonnegut and meatball subs, not opiates that create glassy-eyed party monsters.”

— Amy Poehler

343. “When I left SNL, I gave Seth a badge of courage, like Dorothy give to the Cowardly Lion... He kept it in his pocket during “Update” until he didn’t need it anymore. Now it sits in a box on his desk at Late Night.”

— Amy Poehler

344. “Your career and your passion don’t always match up.”

— Amy Poehler

345. “I am introducing a new idea. Try to care less. Practice ambivalence. Learn to let go of wanting it.”

— Amy Poehler

346. “Gerthe also talked about travel. She talked about living in Jamaica. She joked about her husband and her haircut, because she is more than the earthquake. A person’s tragedy does not make up their entire life. A story carves deep grooves into our brains each time we tell it. But we aren’t one story.”

— Amy Poehler

347. “There should be some kind of pregnancy superhero movie. Calling Hollywood now. What’s that, Hollywood? It’s a weird idea and also you don’t do movies with female superheroes? Copy that.”

— Amy Poehler

348. “A word about apologizing: It’s hard to do it without digging yourself in deeper.”

— Amy Poehler

349. “I don’t remember; I was in a rage haze. Also I was showing off, which can be at the very least embarrassingly transparent and at the very worst.”

— Amy Poehler

350. “Annie taught me that orphanages were a blast and being rich is the only thing that matters. Grease taught me being in a gang is nonstop fun and you need to dress sexier to have any chance of keeping a guy interested. But The Wizard of Oz was the ultimate. It dealt with friendship and fear and death and rainbows and sparkly red shoes.”

— Amy Poehler