Joan Cusack's Quotes

I think us gals need to stay in and just change the way it works, so men aren't being workaholics and avoiding life and relationships, and they can make films in a reasonable amount of time, so you can have a family and a life outside of work. And have more balanced, content-driven, enjoyable movies.

If you do television, and it's great, it's the best job there is. Every week it's another opportunity to really make that work and figure out how to make it work better. I love that it's like theater too, and the audience, and it's so short, like twenty minutes... It's like a Haiku or something.

It was a terrible blow that was dealt when I was fired from 'Saturday Night Live', but I have to say that a few doors opened right away. Movie roles started to roll in, and pretty soon, I was over it.

It's nice to be able to work; I'd love to be able to do another TV show I could do in Chicago so I could live and work in the same place. It's hard being a parent and being in a good marriage, and it all takes a lot of work, but if you're not there you can't do any of it.

My first job now is as a mother, everything else is secondary. My kids understand that I am an actress, and they are always so surprised to hear my voice on a cartoon character, or see my face on a video box. If it ever gets to be too much though, the career and the kids, I will simply set the career aside.

You know, I think I'm more of a micro-person, so to me, the context and the framework of trying to do what you love and feel passionate about, in supporting your family in that way, is the most important thing to me.

I think there's nothing better than laughing in life, so that's nice, to be thought of as someone who can make someone laugh. It's 'cause I think life is hard. You know, my dad was a really silly man. A great Irish silly man. And that's fine.

I think just because life is hard, it does seem fun to have a break and laugh about things, so I think in the end, my instincts go there.

I play- it's kind of like a slice-of-life, LA women in their forties, playing forty kind of what's their friendship like, and what's their life like and so I just play one of the four friends.

I mean, the country was founded on free enterprise. There's good things about it, and there's obviously bad things about it.

I think America has a bad rap right now... and hopefully Obama will change that.

I think it's fun to have work that you can relate to, that you can feel like is meaningful.

I think that everything's hard now anyways, so you might as well do stuff that you love and believe in.

I think there's a million talented people out there, it's just a matter of luck a lot of the time.

I was never the 'babe,' so I knew I'd never get those big roles. I'd always be the best friend or the quirky sidekick.

It was fun; you know, at this point in my life it's like, I want to do stuff that's meaningful.

It's incredibly, incredibly difficult to get a movie made.

Maybe I'm more drawn to those kind of parts because they are meaningful to me. I mean, more parent-y ones, I find them interesting to do.

Skating is big in Chicago. There's a lot of hockey; a lot of the boys play hockey. And figure skating is big.

We need comedies in the world! We need to laugh, it's all so hard.

You know, I loved math. My mom was a math teacher.

A relationship is hard in and of itself. And having kids is really hard work, but I think it's really meaningful, as is a relationship. But they all take work.

Because I don't think it's very healthy to hold people to idealized views. I think that's a certain stage in life, something kids do. You have to go through that idealistic phase with your parents, but at a certain point, you need to see people as just people.