Alia Shawkat quotes:

I was born and grew up in Palm Springs. It's a great place to grow up, a real small town.

I go into work and get my hair and makeup done, go into wardrobe. I have to do three hours of school a day.

If your friend's feeling bad, it's hard to know what to do. Do you back away or try to help them? It's a really hard situation that I've been in. You want to support your friend. You want to be there. My advice is, don't get too involved with it, just be by their side. If they need your help, they'll ask for it.

If you want to do something, then you do it. If you don't want to do something, don't just do it because your friends are doing it, or because all the popular kids are doing it.

When you focus on life, on enjoying and connecting with other people, that's when work comes. When you focus on work, you can never work. I'm always going through waves of that.

Mitch Hurwitz was like a father figure to me. He was so sweet, and he's just so smart.

I've been reading scripts where they've been doing a lot of singing now, but within the dark, realistic story line. I would love, love, love, love to do that. But not a musical on Broadway, I don't have that kind of energy or stamina.

Yeah, I've worked with a couple of female directors, now, and I think that they're amazing. As good or better than guy directors.

I think for a girl to be strong, it doesn't have to involve being physically strong.

Kids can be harsh, especially when they get jealous.

We don't have a laugh track, which helped Seinfeld a lot, and did kind of tell people when to laugh. It just made it a lot easier. Our show doesn't have that, so it's hard for Middle America to catch on.

In my opinion FOX is known for being a network that just advertises, and that's pretty much how they get their viewers.

I was a late bloomer.

Let's not get too comfortable with each other.

Obviously the way people watch TV has changed so much, too, that it's not necessarily about the ratings anymore. There's a different kind of time lapse; you put it out there and people absorb it at their speed, not just on Monday night at eight.

I think with the whole new Internet media, I'm not necessarily Internet savvy, but I just feel that the way that art in general will be presented to the public is going to be different.

The main thing I got from growing up in a suburb is the boredom you have as a child.

I guess I've always been drawn to roles that have smart characters commenting on what's happening around them.

With independent film, as an actor, you have more involvement - it's very much more connected. It's not just like I'm showing up and there's another actor on the call sheet; you're very attached to it.

I don't think it's good to say that you won't do certain things, but I don't necessarily have the natural urge to write.

When I get a new script my mom will read them and just be aghast. I think it's hysterical.

I have been acting for almost 20 years now. At first it changed in my focus and how much I wanted to act. When I was younger, it was so much fun, and I really wanted it, but it was not competitive. Then I became a teenager and it became kind of competitive and not as much fun. I pulled back and I got lazy about it, where I was like, "Yeah, I guess, I'll do small parts in cool movies," but I wasn't really trying to say anything.

I still do a form of sense memory. It honestly depends on the job. It depends on the other people you're working with, how the other actor works. It's take a little from here, take a little from there.

The words are ludicrous at times, but you add the reality to it and that gives it the balance it has

I think how I've gotten better, hopefully, at taking what I've got and being able to mish-mash something together, and as long as it feels real to me in the moment, then it feels like a success.

You don't want to not be single because you're scared of being single.

I've been single for so long that I'm scared of being in a relationship.

I want to do film and TV. I want to make good stories. I want to write; I want to be more involved.

I'm more verbal and not as private as I was as a kid.

I feel like when you're dealing with your main character, it has to be relatable and feel grounded, and that's the kind of acting I like to do anyway.

It is important to be involved in everything.

American shows can go on for 20 years. I respond more to the British format. Three seasons is a long run for them to tell a story.

As an actor you want to just like, act as much as possible.

It's weird, not to sound too actor but I think that any time you do a performance, you kind of take a little piece of that character, cause it's a part of you you're using.

It's nice when you get to leave and travel and be busy and then come home.

You get a kind of familiarity on a set when you're on a TV show.

Acting is a very strange industry in that it flows in these weird ways, I'll be so busy for 6 months and then nothing for a couple months, so it's hard for me to focus and stuff.

I'm not a huge TV person, but when I do watch, it's always after the fact because I like to binge watch.

I'm not at the place in my career necessarily where I'm like offered every role.

I love being on movie sets. It's a very particular setting. And not all of the time, most of the time, there's always people you don't like, and you have to see them every day.