Author: Kelsey Mihachik

“My dad used to tell me that there was always one line in every book that summed up the entire book.” – pg. 14

“I have a lot to be embarrassed about, and I intend to advertise it.” – pg. 17

“If ninety percent of people were in relationships, then clearly I was special if I had managed to avoid one.” – pg. 20

“I feel like I’m always running a million miles an hour, and that I’ve covered a lot of ground, and I like that my life is so full. I’ve had so many adventures, but there are never enough.” – pg. 35

“The next thoughts in my head were telling me that it was okay to be myself. […] That I was enough on my own, and that more time alone would be good for me. […] That happiness can come without all that noise, and that I can choose to find that happiness alone.” – pg. 159

“My favorite pursuit in the world is to sit around and shoot the shit with someone smarter than me. It made me feel like I was playing good tennis.” – pg. 169

“I’m more worried that liking being alone makes me selfish – selfishness is around the corner from narcissism.” – pg. 187

“You’re not a narcissist. […] I deal with narcissists all the time. […] Narcissists are defensive, and you haven’t been defensive about identifying your shortcomings. Narcissists have trouble being self-critical.” – pg. 187

“I had to fall apart in order to come back together.” – pg. 211

“Slowing down doesn’t mean you have to do less. It means you have to pay attention more and catch what the world is throwing at you.” – pg. 236

“Know that you have something of value that is unlike what anyone else has.” – pg. 239

“The face of an angel, the mind of a devil, and a heart of gold.” – a photo note from Chelsea Handler’s mother

“Go for it. Wherever you can afford to go with whomever you can get to go with you.” – pg. 255

“She is most dangerous when she’s bored or has a little free time and is looking to entertain herself.” – Johnny Kansas, pg. 2

“No matter how exotic the locale or romantic the setting, after ten days alone, two people run out of things to do and shit to say.” – Brad Wollack, pg. 120

“Go for the joke and then let shit sort itself out afterward. Not always a great trait but, at the very least, it’s entertaining.” – Josh Wolf, pg. 162

“You can tell someone is truly into practical jokes if they don’t need to be there when the payoff happens. Just the knowledge that it’s going to happen is enough for Chelsea.” – Josh Wolf, pg. 163

“I’ve often been told I don’t have much of a life, but the joke is on the people who say that to me, because the fact is I don’t. But at least I’m aware of it.” – Eva Magdalenski, pg. 198

“Chelsea loves all of the people who are close to her equally. That means nobody gets special treatment… and nobody is safe.” – Eva Magdalenski, pg. 211

“Chelsea Handler is a sharp cookie and has a beautifully bizarre brain. She may also be many things, but she is not a genius.” – Amy Meyer, pg. 229

Surprise! A rare book with no pull quotes. Alas, to the bookshelf it goes.

“No one else I knew ever seemed to get themselves in the situations I did. I was officially thirty and wondered if there was an age when this kind of behavior should be curved.” – pg. 136

“It’s been my experience that people who make proclamations about themselves are usually the opposite of what they claim to be.” – pg. 175

“[I wondered] why I agree to pick people up from the airport. It really is a ridiculous activity if you’re not sleeping with the person.” – pg. 207

“It’s always the couples who are the friendliest who have the most problems. It makes sense, if you think about it. They’re so miserable with each other, of course they’re fascinated by you.” – pg. 41

“Pain is pain any way you slice it.” – pg. 47

“One of my girlfriends was getting married. This was becoming an annoying pattern.” – pg. 61

“If you pretend to be excited about something you’re not looking forward to, eventually you will start to believe it.” – pg. 146

“I’d been thinking about screenwriting for a while. […] I thought about it every time I saw a movie that made me feel something. Even more when I saw one that didn’t.” – pg. 9

“The beauty of long drives alone in the car is that it’s the best place to think.” – pg. 11

“I normally didn’t do writerly things in public, such as taking a pad and pen to a coffeehouse. […] It seemed pretentious and calculated and Hemingwayish.” – pg. 36

“You can’t be a major dreamer without having a healthy ego.” – pg. 62

“You see, it really doesn’t matter if your idea is good or bad because the powers that be are past the point of recognizing either.” – pg. 105

“If you write honestly, then you’re a good writer and you’ll succeed.” – pg. 152

“This much I know about creative endeavors: They’re out of your control.” – pg. 280

“Sunshine is like anything else. When you don’t have it all the time, it’s better.” – pg. 307

“It’s so important to get out of your hometown and get the fuck away from your family.” – pg. 61

“Comedy requires taking risks.” – pg. 68

“You have to go through multiple relationships to find the right one. You both will probably go through three to five serious relationships in your life before finding your person.” – pg. 149

“It was clear how you grabbed audiences and held on to them: by telling them those stories they would fall in love with.” – pg. 14

“Do not ever be afraid to ask a question when you don’t understand something. Never be hesitant about it. Never be embarrassed about it. And if the first person you ask doesn’t want to give you the answer, then find someone else who will help. Because it’s always on you to figure it out and get it right.” – pg. 28

“[Saturday Night Live] was the opposite of predictable, and the epitome of original.” – pg. 82

“If my career had taught me anything, it was that the only way to achieve something fantastic was to take big chances.” – pg. 96

“Television can be an emotional business with emotional people. You’re best off understanding and even appreciating that notion if you want to make something great.” – pg. 103

“I had to take chances; I had to believe that my ideas could work.” – pg. 122

“Television, entertainment, movies – all of show business – isn’t about shows and programs; it’s about relationships.” Sam Weisbord to Dick Ebersol, pg. 123

“If you find a job you love, don’t try to satiate your ego by finding something else. Just realize how lucky you are, and have a great time working your ass off from there.” – pg. 188

“The creative people are the people who feed any show business enterprise; who put asses in seats, or eyeballs in front of television sets.” – pg. 199

“You couldn’t bullshit them, but you could inspire them to want to be part of our success.” – pg. 204

“Not every risk is going to pay off. But that doesn’t mean you don’t take them.” – Jack Immelt, pg. 230

“Through all my jobs, in and out of sports, there was something appealing about not just going all over the globe, but doing it through unusual, sometimes crazy means.” – pg. 247

“On the road, in any city, and in any country, one of my favorite things to do was simple: walk around.” – pg. 247

“For all the unpredictability and adventure that defined my work life, what’s ironic is that anyone who knows me well would also tell you how much I love familiarity and routine in the rest of my life. […] I like what I know, and I find comfort in what I can count on.” – pg. 248

“It was okay to cry, it was okay to be sad – okay, even, to be sad for the rest of our lives. But we couldn’t be mad. Anger would cloud our ability to mourn and find some improbably path to healing.” – Dick Ebersol on Susan’s mantra, pg. 262

“It would be a terrible mistake if you, Dick, were ever to entertain any thought such as ‘I should have been home more,’ or ‘I worked too much and that was bad.’ Because your passion and creativity and vision and successes and devotion to the details of your work and all the joy you got from that was a pulse of our house. The heartbeat – we all thrived on it and learned from it and it rubbed off on us.” – Susan Ebersol, pg. 265

“His sister turned and asked , point-blank, why he cared so much about the game. ‘I wanted to be able to speak [Dad’s] language. He loves baseball. So I wanted to love baseball.'” – Dick Ebersol on Teddy, pg. 270

“He was the embodiment of everything great about the NFL – the passion it stokes in people, the significance it’s had on American culture, the joy it’s brought.” – Dick Ebersol on Brett Favre, pg. 299

“My only real goal in all of this is to leave the sport bigger and better than I was lucky enough to find it.” – Michael Phelps, pg. 312

“It had been a long, long time since the Olympics had first captured my imagination that way. And it was amazing to think how, for all the ways the world had changed, that was still exactly the same.” – pg. 323

“Everything he wrote still holds up today. Build up characters. Bring the atmosphere to life. Make people feel like they’re in the stadiums themselves. Tell a great story.” – on Roone Arledge’s 1962 memo, pg. 347

“There’s still something magical about events, and entertainers, that can bring millions, if not billions, together. They show us how much we share, rather than how different we are. How much we have in common, rather than how much we disagree.” – pg. 348

“They may say it isn’t as good as it was then – but they still tune in.” – pg. 10

“There were people who thought every paycheck was their last. At the same time, there was this infectiousness. It was a joyous thing, really. Everybody had been fired up with this concept of the inmates running the asylum, and the idea that the writers were the most important aspect of the show.” – Neil Levy, pg. 51

“You could make up a whole world out of what I didn’t know back then.” – Lorne Michaels, pg. 72

“You know what made me good was simply not giving a flying fuck.” – Chevy Chase, pg. 78

“If you did a show you really cared about, it didn’t matter if anybody watched it.” – Lorne Michaels, pg. 87

“I think the ending to a movie is hard, the ending to a television show, the ending to anything is tough. You kind of want to wrap everything up with a bow and button it all up and hark back to what you have done before and end on a high note or great joke. And that’s not always possible.” – Dan Aykroyd, pg. 127

“Lorne’s contribution was, which was integral to the whole thing, not only in selecting people but in creating an atmosphere where people could endure the pressure.”– James Signorelli, pg. 127

“You have to know each cast member to get the best work that you can out of them.” – Al Franken, pg. 130

“To me, comedy writing was all about flirting with taboos and seeing how far you could push it.” – Rosie Schuster, pg. 138

“As a result, because she made other people look good, she herself looked fantastic.” – Bill Murray on Gilda Radner, pg. 147

“The amount of things that have to come together for something to be good is just staggering. And the fact that there’s anything good at all is just amazing.” – Lorne Michaels, pg. 171

“I came from a car culture. Not to be able to drive myself around is like imprisonment to me.” – Laraine Newman, pg. 186

“I have quite a fondness for that period, those first five years. You were doing something that you knew was something.” – Howard Shore, pg. 186

“‘Our competition is sleep,’ as one cast member put it.” – pg. 192

“I think a lot of people were saying, ‘Why couldn’t I have been on the good show?’ And it’s like, why don’t you make a good show yourself? […] I think in a weird way it’s a privilege to stand on your own feet and not coast on somebody else’s reputation.” – Pam Norris, pg. 197

“After a very successful show, the next guy usually fails and then the third guy comes in, takes over, and succeeds.” – Jean Doumanian, pg. 203

“People just aren’t that clever, and sometimes things that look like clever schemes are just people stumbling over their own feet.” – Pam Norris, pg. 203

“If you want to quit that show, you’ve got to be crazy. Here’s the thing you can’t lose sight of: […] You have a chance to reach some hearts and minds out there. You have a chance to say something. You cannot walk away from this.” – John Belushi to Tim Kazurinsky, pg. 215

“I always thought it was like final exams. I was always exhausted and never home, But then the more I did it, the more I was able to figure out how to do it and not work so insanely.” – Martin Short, pg. 267

“It’s over before it seems like you started it. You have to go with the flow. And you can’t sit there and think about it too much, you have to just accept a lot of things in trust and go for it.” – Danny Devito, pg. 286

“Lorne Michaels loves a lot of things. He’s not in love with anything but Saturday Night Live. That’s it. It’s that simple. That’s why he came back.” – Bernie Brillstein, pg. 294

“Someone very powerful told me, ‘You don’t want to do Saturday Night Live. Someody who wants to be you wants to do Saturday Night Live.‘” – Herb Sargent, pg. 295

“I feel with my life, somebody’s been so generous with experiences for me – whosever controlling it. […] I feel maybe I’m getting this all now and quickly because there’s not going to be a whole lot later.” – Gilda Radner, pg. 355

“The reason I hired you guys was original thought. Anybody can do impressions.” – Lorne Michaels to Chris Rock, pg. 363

“The show was a major part of the life of every one of the kids I grew up with.” – Adam Sandler, pg. 363

“There’s no such thing as your whole career being decided in one night.” – Lisa Kudrow, pg. 366

“One thing I’ve always respected about Lorne is that he has this real hard-on for any kind of censorship. He does not want anything to be censored. He wants things to happen as they happen.” – John Zonars, pg. 370

“Sandler brought a really great breath of fresh air to the show and relaxed the show when it was getting kind of uptight and formulaic.” – Bob Odenkirk, pg. 380

“I had a four person office: me, Sandler, Farley, and Spade, we shared an office. And those are my boys for life. For life. I love those guys.” – Chris Rock, pg. 386

“We lived for comedy. We still do.” – Adam Sandler, pg. 387

“I always thought that if comedy is going to confuse anybody, by rights it should be the stupider people.” – James Downey, pg. 395

“It’s a remarkable place, because if you survive that process, you’re probably going to be able to survive the next ten years of your career.” – Fred Wolf, pg. 398

“A lot of people just wanted to use that show as a stepping-stone to get out and move on. But I just loved being there.” – Kevin Nealon, pg. 404

“I used to say that you only get so many hours that you can be with someone in a lifetime, and you can kind of use it all up in a very intense four or five years or you can spread it over a lifetime. Friendship really needs distance and space.” – Lorne Michaels, pg. 416

“It takes me a long time to understand why I don’t like people. I think it’s a problem I haven’t solved.” – Lorne Michaels, pg. 426

“When Saturday Night Live is really good, they do care what the audience thinks. And when Saturday Night Live is not really good, they’re kind of doing it for themselves and their pals.” – Don Ohlmeyer, pg. 431

“As long as six guys on a couch behind that camera that I was looking into laughed, and I knew those guys, then I was there.” – Chevy Chase, pg. 431

“I hate applause. […] That’s all they’re doing, saying they agree with your viewpoint. And while you can applaud voluntarily, you can’t laugh voluntarily – you have to laugh involuntarily – so I hate when an audience applauds.” – Norm Macdonald, pg. 432

“Part of being a comedian is the delusion that you should be onstage at all times.” – Colin Quinn, pg. 439

“The first cast of Saturday Night Live had lacked one thing that all subsequent groups would enjoy: access to the work of predecessors. […] They made it up as they went along, and many improvisations born of desperation became traditions and tenets.” – pg. 452

“One prevailing frustration is kind of like not knowing where you’ll be the same time next year. But I guess a lot of show business is like that.” – Horatio Sanz, pg. 459

“It’s kind of an amazing thing when you’re with a writer. You see the joy in the human face, and not because of what they’re writing, or the job of writing it, but the excitement that they’re going to unveil a good reference or a good bit, kind of like a mad scientist rubbing his hands together and giggling: ‘If this monster works, I’m a genius, and if it fails, it’s back to the drawing board.’ […] Writing itself is tedious. No one ever really enjoys writing until it’s done. But you’re excited to see people read it, excited to think, ‘Will they get it?'” – Jimmy Fallon, pg. 477

“Sometimes they just don’t want to see accuracy, they just want it to be funny.” – Darrell Hammond, pg. 487

“We got to walk away not just with the side effect of success, but with the experience. Having the experience was probably the greatest thing.” – Bill Murray, pg. 498

“That’s why I found the twenty-fifth anniversary reunion so emotional, because all these people from different eras who had gone through this quagmire and had been in the trenches and everything, they just forgot about it and were feeling real celebratory.” – Tom Hanks, pg. 500

“If there’s something you’re good at, you wind up doing it.” – Mike Shoemaker, pg. 503

“I knew I couldn’t move people back to normal, but maybe we could at least get them to start doing the things they normally did, to be able to deal with some of the pain they were going through.” – Rudolph Giuliani, pg. 505

“What’s truly amazing is that it’s reinvented itself so many, many, many times.” – Warren Littlefield, pg. 512

“My theory is that you kind of stop growing at the age you are when you become famous. Because what happens is, people start removing all your obstacles, and if you have no obstacles you don’t know who you are.” – Gwyneth Paltrow, pg. 519

“When I have the opportunity during the course of a season, I say, ‘I envy you so much. Because from this point on, you’re going to look at the world totally different. Now the world gets to service you. All you have to do is see it.’ […] That’s the greatest gift I think a writer can have, is to actually observe the human condition, to actually put it down on paper and give emotion to it.” – Ken Aymong, pg. 521

“Lorne has no interest in what you want to talk about. None. What Lorne thinks is, if you need him to help you solve it, it’s not worth solving.” – James Signorelli, pg. 553