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

— Amy Poehler

302. “I loved school. I loved new shoes and lunch boxes and sharp pencils. I would hold dance contests in tiny finished basements with my friends. I roller-skated in my driveway and walked home from the bus stop on my own. We never locked our door. I had a younger brother whom I loved and also liked. I thought my mother was the most beautiful mother in the world and my father was a superhero who would always protect me. I wish this feeling for every child on earth.”

— Amy Poehler

303. “I am here to tell you that you don’t have to. You don’t have to tell it or tweet it or Instagram it. You don’t have to put it in a book or share it with anyone who doesn’t feel safe and protective of your heart.”

— Amy Poehler

304. “I can party like a twenty-four-year-old but it takes me almost a week to recover.”

— Amy Poehler

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

— Amy Poehler

306. “A war raged between my jokey and protective brain and my squishy and tender heart. 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. So let’s peek behind the curtain and hail the others like us. The open-faced sandwiches who take risks and live big and smile with all of their teeth. These are the people I want to be around. This is the honest way I want to live and love and write.”

— Amy Poehler

307. “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

308. “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

309. “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

310. “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

311. “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

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

— Amy Poehler

313. “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

314. “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

315. “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

316. “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

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

— Amy Poehler

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

— Amy Poehler

319. “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

320. “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

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

— Amy Poehler

322. “A watched cervix never dilates.”

— Amy Poehler

323. “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

324. “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

325. “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

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

— Amy Poehler

327. “Our parents surround us with origin stories that create deep grooves in the vinyl records of our lives.”

— Amy Poehler

328. “It was hard to feel like somebody didn’t like me. It felt like such a failure. I don’t care as much now. It’s really great. It’s like I can finally eat spicy food without the gut ache later, or something similar. I have a stomach for other people not stomaching me. Or at least I am working on it.”

— Amy Poehler

329. “I didn’t really know what kind of actor I wanted to be back then. I didn’t have a real plan or even a mentor to follow. I just knew the things I didn’t want. I didn’t want to be tied down and stuck. I didn’t want to decide who I was going to marry or where I was going to live.”

— Amy Poehler

330. “I know how good I am at bemoaning my process and pretending I don’t care so that my final product will seem totally natural and part of my essence and not something I sweated for months and years.”

— Amy Poehler

331. “The only way we will survive is by being kind.”

— Amy Poehler

332. “I think it’s glorious to be nervous. Being nervous is great! How often do we get nervous on a daily basis? Being slightly nervous means you care, and you’re alive, and you’re taking some kind of risk. Hooray for being nervous! A friend told me to substitute the word ‘excitement’ for ‘nervous’. That way you acknowledge the physical feelings without putting a negative spin on things. So to answer your question, sometimes I still get so excited about ‘Update’ that I want to throw up.”

— Amy Poehler

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

— Amy Poehler

334. “At first we only knew a few things: we wanted to make content we would have watched when we were younger, and we wanted to end our episodes with a dance party. Spontaneous dance parties are important in my life. I have one in the makeup trailer almost every afternoon on Parks and Recreation. 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

335. “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

336. “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

337. “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

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

— Amy Poehler

339. “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

340. “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

341. “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

342. “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

343. “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

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

— Amy Poehler

345. “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

346. “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

347. “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

348. “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

349. “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

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

— Amy Poehler