Amy Poehler on Sex, Plastic Surgery, and Her Attraction to John McCain
Photos Liezl Estipona
With her new book Yes Please, out Tuesday, Amy Poehler joins an ever expanding roster of female comedians turned novelists including Tina Fey, Mindy Kaling, Lena Dunham, and Rachel Dratch.
And while Fey and Kaling’s book went for the feel good side of funny, Poehler follows Dunham’s approach and gives us a raw, honest take on her life. She details her “blown out” post-baby stomach, but she also favorably compares her vagina to Angelina Jolie. She opens up about her past love affair with marijuana and cocaine and mentions the depression and anger she felt after her divorce from Will Arnett. She even devotes an entire chapter to a brief joke she made on Saturday Night Live that so offended the actor Chris Cooper and his wife that it required the director Spike Jonze to help patch things up.
Here are some of our favorite quotes from Yes Please…
On her public image:
"I am not as nice as you think I am."
On natural birth:
"I knew I was the kind of person who could barely go to the movies without being stoned, let alone a delivery room."
On plastic surgery:
"Can I be honest? You look like a lady from The Broadway show Cats."
On missed opportunities:
"I am convinced I could have had sex with both Tony Bennett and John McCain if we weren’t each happily married at the time we all met."
On John McCain:
"He noticed me smoking and told me if he knew the world was going to end the first thing he would do is start smoking again."
On fame:
"Famous people are never as interesting as your friends."
On improving your sex life:
"Get better at dirty talk. Act like a bossy lady ordering at a deli. “I want a ham on rye and make sure you toast it! If your guy is bad at dirty talk tell him to shut up. He might like that."
On people she doesn’t know:
"No one needs to ask me a question. There is no reason to talk to strangers. I do not want you to hand me your homemade CD or talk to me on an airplane or try to upsell me on drink specials. As I get older I take a real pleasure in maintaining boundaries with strangers. I have come to enjoy telling the cheese guy at the farmers’ market that he does not value my time."
On her past:
"I plan on lying to my children about most of my drug use."
On aging:
"Once a woman turns forty she has to start dealing with two things: younger men telling her they are proud of her and older men letting her know they would have sex with her."
