Ellen DeGeneres

I just like observing people - it's something I've done ever since I was a kid, and I got really good at it. That's a big part of why I became a comedian. My audience is filled with every kind of person you can imagine, and I love that.

I'm a lesbian, an Aquarian, and a vegetarian.

But seriously, I think overall in the scheme of things winning an Emmy is not important. Let's get our priorities straight. I think we all know what's really important in life - winning an Oscar.

I'm on the patch right now. Where it releases small dosages of approval until I no longer crave it, and then I'm gonna rip it off.

Yeah I'm thirty-six, but on the show I'm thirty-two. Nobody wants to watch a thirty-six year old woman, so they decided to make me thirty-two. Much more appealing somehow.

I was coming home from kindergarten - well they told me it was kindergarten. I found out later I had been working in a factory for ten years. It's good for a kid to know how to make gloves.

I do like men and I had, you know, a guy in high school that I wanted to marry desperately. He's the mayor of some small town in Texas. I could be the mayor's wife right now.

There would be nothing to get me to run for president. I don't even understand how anyone would want that job at all. Although I would be able to play golf which I don't seem to have time now.

You have to stay in shape. My grandmother, she started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She's 97 today and we don't know where the hell she is.

I'm grateful for everything. I'm grateful for my health, and I'm so grateful for the love in my life.

I have a great career, and I have wonderful fans who really are supportive and loyal - because I'm not hiding anything from them.

The reason I do what I do is because I was influenced by Steve Martin, by Woody Allen, by Bob Newhart, by Carol Burnett, by Lucille Ball.

A kid should be told that you can have feelings.

Faith is part of who I am, yes. I was raised Christian Scientist. The most important thing I saw every single week on the wall at Sunday school was the Golden Rule.

I didn't see deep emotion from my parents. It was all very polite and very surface. I never knew how anybody was feeling.

I was raised around heterosexuals, as all heterosexuals are, that's where us gay people come from... you heterosexuals.

I'm not an activist; I don't look for controversy. I'm not a political person, but I'm a person with compassion. I care passionately about equal rights. I care about human rights. I care about animal rights.

The first house I bought was a little Spanish bungalow on Clinton Street in West Hollywood, right behind the Improv. I was renting it, and I asked the owners if I could buy it, and they were really nice and let me work out a deal. And I fixed it up and later sold it. That was when I realized that if you make some improvements, you can make money.

I've been trying to find women writers for my staff for a while now and I have three women on my staff and three guys so it's pretty equal. I don't know why that is. It's been the same thing for a while. It's hard for female comedians to stand out. That's weird. That's a shame.

I get those fleeting, beautiful moments of inner peace and stillness - and then the other 23 hours and 45 minutes of the day, I'm a human trying to make it through in this world.