Quotes from Pamela Adlon

My roles in the '80s were, like, gender dysphoric. I wasn't pretty, I wasn't this, I wasn't that. And I am kind of butchy, you know. That's just my thing.

Cooking is the best occupational therapy for me. And when I cook, everybody comes to eat. It's the greatest thing.

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.

'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.

Everybody hates you when you're the best, and everybody hates you when you're the worst.

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.

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

It's spelled, like, S-E-R-G. I always thought it would be funny if I called my son 'Sir.' Like calling your daughter 'Ma'am,' or something like that.

It's a hilarious part of my past, all the sitcoms I did in the '80s. And then all the animation - animation is amazing. It's really been great.

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.

I get up at 6 A.M., and sometimes I make lunch for my two youngest kids. Usually my oldest sleeps late, and I get my kids out the door to school. For years, it was me just doing all of that and then driving to a carpool or this or that.

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?

Being a mother is the ultimate training ground for anything.

I want to elevate the mundane.

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.'

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.

I'm very influenced by documentary filmmaking and independent filmmaking, by a lot of noir and films from the '40s. Those are my favorite. And then, filmmaking from the '70s is a big influence for me.

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.

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.

When you hit your 40s, you're walking around, and you realize, 'Oh, my God, men don't look at me anymore.' Or sometimes you can feel really good, and then you look in the mirror, and you're like, 'Oh, Jesus, that's my face now!' But I have tell you that something happened and shifted inside of me.

I've been adapting ever since my oldest had her first play date with a boy, and I was like, 'That's not normal,' because I came from the old school. Now boys sleep over at my house. It doesn't matter which girl, which age.

I learned so much from the writing on 'King of the Hill', which I thought was just magnificent. They would let real moments happen in this animated, one-dimensional world. I feel like I've been in school this whole time.

I don't usually say 'working mom' because I think all moms are working moms. I feel like that diminishes moms. People should say 'working dad' as opposed to working moms.

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.