Top 35 Pamela Adlon Quotes

You can go in and out of love and still love somebody, you know? You may not like them so much on the day, but I can tell you that I don’t think I’ve ever been so vulnerable or been so angry in my life – like, those two emotions feel so hurt or so enraged – as when you’re dealing with your kids.

I’ve always been kind of a mom. I was out of my house when I was 18, and my friends used to call me ‘mother’ and ‘care unit.’

You’ve gotta leave enough space for your actors to bring stuff to the table and whatever the weather’s doing that day or what the light’s like. Things can shift, and you have to be malleable. Every day is a different feeling and a change.

I want to be a strong, safe mom who my kids also want to be around.

I try to direct myself the way I direct the other actors who come on my show.

I am a single mom of three girls, and I’m getting through that. If I can get through that, I can direct a whole season of television that I star in.

‘Roseanne’ was massive for me. I adored that show. I mean, the show was this couple who weren’t cookie-cutter, and they were sexy, and we know that they like to have sex with each other, and they flirted, and then they ragged on their kids, and their kids ragged on them, and it was such a realistic depiction.

I want to elevate the mundane.

I never want to waste a frame. I always look and see what I’ve got.

I’m somebody who, if I went to the grocery store, and one of them wasn’t with me, I would feel guilty. I would be like, ‘I shouldn’t be doing anything without them, anytime, ever.’ A very codependent way of thinking. Also, motherhood is hugely about guilt.

The only people on this planet that can make me feel like my feelings are hurt are my kids.

Sometimes when I’m in the editing room and there’s a new person there, like a music editor or a post person that I don’t really know, I’m like, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t be in here. This is too personal – you can’t watch this.’ But then I’m like, hey dummy, you’re about to show this to the whole world.

I’ve been working since I’m 9 years old.

I don’t like to let people know where I’m going to end up, and I don’t personally like to know where I’m going.

Sometimes when I’m in the car driving, I scream at the top of my lungs.

I can’t imagine bringing in somebody else to direct my show. Wouldn’t that be funny, if next season I had, like, Michael Bay come in and direct ‘Better Things’? I wonder what that would be like?

I just like to keep things small and subtle and authentic, and ground everything in reality. So that is something that I feel is my strength as a director and I try to achieve as an actor.

My life is extraordinary because it’s so normal, but it’s so ‘extra’ for some reason.

There’s something in my voice tonally that’s like a boy, so I started being able to do boy voices and to be known as having a naturalistic boy tone without pushing it.

I want to create opportunities for women, of course.

Everything that happens to me in a day enhances my parenting.

The first thing that I ever made was a documentary that I shot… in downtown L.A. about a group of homeless people.

When I saw ‘Louie’ and ‘Girls’, I was blown out of the water. They were fearless portrayals of real life. Everyone has a different experience.

Wouldn’t it be funny if I were a total nightmare? If I just shot 21-hour days and went over budget? But, you know, it’s something I’m really careful about, because I am a mom, and also, I’m an actor. I’m a pleaser: I don’t want to take up too much of people’s time.

I don’t think I have a demographic. I was at Comic-Con in San Diego recently, and I was doing a signing, and my line was all military guys, young girls, housewives and guys in wheelchairs. There was just everybody all over the place.

You can’t regulate what these kids are being exposed to on the Internet. It’s so way out of control. All you can do is just try to talk to your own kids.

I learned so much from my life as an actor, as a kid actor through being an adult actor, and then becoming a writer and producer and doing animation.

Before ‘Lucky Louie,’ nobody would ever cast me to play a mom or a wife; nobody ever saw me in that role, which is weird, since that’s who I really am.

I’m more of somebody who’ll bend over backwards for people and, you know, wait at the back of the line until everybody’s taken care of. That’s really my nature.

I’m trying to keep my days very efficient, and I keep my set really tight. Every single corner is active, and everybody gets to thrive in the job that they do. I don’t waste people’s time.

I think, over the years, the way my daughters’ friends have embraced me has definitely made my daughters appreciate me more. Of course they take me for granted because I’m the one who’s there, but listen, I don’t want to be ‘the cool mom’ who lets things get out of control.That’s not my lookout.

They would call me ‘The Cleaner’ because I would replace boys who were real adolescents, and their voices completely changed, and they couldn’t do the voices anymore.

I went from buying my own condominium and a car for myself when I was 17 on ‘The Facts of Life’ to not being able to pay my rent. I was at the unemployment office all the time. I had to sell my record collection just to make ends meet. And then I started getting these voice-over jobs.

Literally, FX is like, ‘How can we foster your vision?’ My vision is pretty much taking pictures of the way I see my life.

The thing about women playing boys is that we’re not going to age, and we’re not going to go through puberty in the middle of a long-running series.