Top 150 SNL Quotes

I grew up watching ‘The Tonight Show’ and Jimmy Fallon on ‘SNL.’

Maybe it’s because One Direction was just on ‘SNL,’ or because I’m playing The Wanted on my Top 40 show, but in terms of boy bands, we’re seeing this resurgence, and it’s happening, whether you like it or not!

‘SNL’ can be a stressful environment, and I am panicking constantly, but I guess I keep it pretty internal.

I think I made more money when I was lifeguarding at 15 years old than I did on my first year at ‘SNL.’

I had been on this improv team at this really great improv theater. It’s called iO now. It used to be called Improv Olympic. They have showcases for Lorne Michaels and other writers and people who work at ‘SNL’ usually about once a year, although I don’t know if it always happens.

I don’t think we fully understood what the implications could be when we found out we were doing ‘SNL.’

‘SNL’ is our main priority because that was our first big break.

‘SNL’ is part of my history. I got on the show as a kid. That’s the show I got known from.

I love Jennifer Aniston. I’m a bit obsessed with her. I also love Kristen Wiig, and obviously, ‘Bridesmaids’ is one of the funniest movies ever. I do have some of her ‘SNL’ skits that I’ve saved on my computer and stuff.

‘SNL’ has kind of been like my school.

I loved ‘SNL’ growing up, and I would trick my babysitter into letting me stay up to watch it. My family would rent Marx brothers’ movies and Monty Python episodes, and we watched ‘In Living Color’, ‘The State’, and ‘Strangers with Candy’.

Most days, we don’t get to the ‘SNL’ studio until noon. On Monday, we pitch the host, and that’s our shortest, lightest day. Tuesday is our longest day – some people don’t leave until Wednesday night. It’s just a long, long day.

Jason Sudeikis said an SNL go-to for naming people was: regular first name, noun last name. My noun was Beard.

It’s not to say that, like, my sensibility is being sort of policed in any way. It’s just I am trained at SNL’ to think about the general audience. That’s a unique aspect of SNL’ – that everyone has an opinion on it from every generation.

I’m happy because I was proud of what I did at ‘SNL.’ It’s the only time probably in my life that I didn’t have any regrets. I worked really hard. I played really nice. I threw myself into it. I committed. Beyond that, what else could I have done?

My jokes have definitely changed. ‘SNL’ has helped with that, because when you’re on ‘SNL,’ you have to kind of pay attention to the news. I feel like my material has gotten smarter now.

You learn quickly at ‘SNL’ you get in trouble if you compare yourself to other people, where they’re at, or what other people had done before you.

My first ‘SNL’ episode was with Michael Phelps and Lil Wayne. And if you go back and watch the monologue – it was supposed to feature Barack Obama, but we couldn’t get him – it was with William Shatner. But if you watch it, Guy Fieri is sitting in the front row.

I’m really impressed every time Kanye comes to perform at ‘SNL’ because he finds a new way to make that space work for him.

Well, basically, when you get SNL, everyone wants to take a meeting, just in case you end up being good.

I go to ‘SNL’ with Alec. I literally watch on a feed from his room. I’m not in the audience. I watch in his room. I get so cozy.

With ‘SNL,’ it’s such an iconic institution. Throughout my 20s or maybe even in middle school or high school, it never felt like a real thing. It felt so distant, and I never imagined I could do that.

It was so quick for me on ‘SNL.’ It’s not something I consider to be, like, one of the big spaces in my career.

Things I used to get in trouble for writing at ‘SNL,’ suddenly other people like it.

Obviously Mad TV, SNL are one kind of show, whereas The State belongs to the kind of show that is entirely conceived written and performed by a set group that existed before the TV show.

Yeah, I just don’t break. I don’t. And there’s only one person I know who’s a better non-breaker than me, and that’s Will Forte from ‘SNL.’ You can not make that guy break. I’ll break eventually – Will Forte will never break.

One of the most positive takeaways I’ve had from ‘SNL’ is when we’d make videos back in the day: we’d just write material as we were inspired, and so, in a given year, we’d only put out two or three videos.

Sometimes ‘Portlandia’ can be pretty traditional. But the stuff I’ve always loved on ‘SNL’ has always been the weirdest stuff I’ve done. The stuff that went on at 10 to 1 in the morning.

I started ‘SNL,’ and I became the one who did impressions. I did that, but then I wanted to get an original character on, and that took a long time to get one on that stuck. And then I got Vinny Vedecci on – ‘Oh great’ – and then it took a couple more seasons to get Greg the Alien on. You have to have some patience.

You don’t just decide to destroy a person by making up stuff, and no one at ‘SNL’ is writing to go after someone.

I’ve always been an ‘SNL’ fan.

My first year on ‘SNL’, I made $90,000 dollars. And I bought a red Corvette for $45,000 dollars. I’m thinking, ‘I’ve got 45 grand left!’ Taxes didn’t even come into my equation. At the end of the first year of making 90 grand I was 25, 30 in the hole. We live in this baller, spend-money culture.

When I’m struck by things, I want to hear more and find out more. I remember when Lana Del Rey was on ‘SNL,’ this supposedly disastrous performance. She’s doing this pretentious torch song, and I thought, ‘I don’t know what she’s doing, but it’s really moving me.’

I’m not totally sure what I want to be doing, but it’s so fun to be on ‘SNL’ because you get exposed to so many different people and so many different experiences. It’s a cool, lucky way to break into the business.

When you’re doing a film, you’re on a set and you have retakes and you have time to get it right. And on ‘SNL’ it’s just go, go, go. If you can’t read the cue cards or miss your mark, you’re just left to sort of screw up. So there’s a lot more pressure doing a live TV show.

The comedy community has embraced us, wholeheartedly. People that are more in the public and celebrity, but even stand-ups, sketch people on ‘SNL,’ those people – and it’s been wonderful to have them embrace it.

The nature of ‘SNL’ is that it’s so in-the-moment.

‘SNL’ is one of those jobs where you are constantly reminded of how lucky you are and that you get to meet some of these people whose work you enjoy. Then you get to meet them, and they are just wonderful people. It turns out wonderfully, and you have a great conversation.

Just classic immigrant story – I mean, child of immigrant story – did not grow up with cable and so felt constantly like I was being spoken to in a foreign language when I would go to school. And people would be like, did you watch this? Did you watch that? I’d be like, no, but I did watch ‘SNL.’

I am a fan of ‘SNL’ and a big Jimmy Fallon fan, too.

You can track elections by who was playing that president on ‘SNL’ at that time. There’s the theory that the more likable or charismatic impression would help get the president elected.

I got invited to the Playboy Mansion with the Lonely Island guys after their first season on ‘SNL,’ and I sat in the corner drinking coffee and talking to Akiva Schaffer about what aspect ratio he was going to shoot ‘Hot Rod’ in. Like, that’s what we talk about.

People ask me, ‘Did you always want to be on SNL?’ No, actually, it never crossed my mind. It didn’t even seem possible. It would’ve been like saying, ‘Hey, do you wanna go to the moon?’

‘SNL’ is probably one of the premiere outlets that a musician can perform on that isn’t obviously a music outlet.

When I was hired to ‘SNL,’ I was 25 years old.

There’s no job like ‘SNL.’ There’s no other job you go to where you’re like, ‘Oh, this is like that live, late-night sketch variety-musical show that shoots in, whatever it is, 10,000 feet of sound stage.’ There’s nothing like it.

People get recruited from sketch groups and put on ‘Mad TV’ and ‘SNL,’ but those aren’t ensembles, they’re all-star teams.

I was 8, and I was probably too young for it, but that’s when I started to watch SNL.’ That’s when I got a sense of what American humor was.

I hired Tina Fey for ‘SNL,’ which was certainly a good match. She took off right away there.

I didn’t audition for ‘SNL.’ I sent in a tape to ‘SNL’ the year before I started writing there, but I got the job there through doing stand-up on Fallon.

I went to Second City, where you learned to make the other actor look good so you looked good and National Lampoon, where you had to create everything out of nothing, and SNL, where you couldn’t make any mistakes, and you learned what collaboration was.

I was playing with the audience between takes. And the SNL’ crew was like, OK, we see you.’ I’m like, Dude, they’re right there.’ If you were playing a rock show, you don’t just go quiet and tune your guitar between songs. You have a little bit of chat, a little bit of banter.

I watch ‘The Bachelor’. It’s one of those things where I always think if it didn’t exist and it was on ‘SNL,’ we would think it would be a ridiculous, funny idea. But it actually exists… It’s a glorious train wreck that I love to watch.