A collection of Liz Lemon & Co.'s best one-liners, gripes, musings, and wacky non sequiturs, in honor of their last night on air
Well, the big day is finally here: Tonight we'll watch Liz, Jack, and the rest of the TGS gang say their final goodbyes. If 30 Rock has been a bit uneven in recent seasons, the one thing that remained a constant was the hilarious, quotable lines that the show's talented writing team would sprinkle into each episode. I spent the past few weeks culling through my favorites to come up 100 of the very best lines—from the weird to the wonderful to the wonderfully weird. The only rule: Each of the entries had to work as a standalone quote, sans context, which in most cases, made them even funnier.
Relive some of the best 30 Rock moments below, and by all means, let's keep this going in the comments. Long live Elizabeth Miervaldis Lemon!
"Affirmative action was designed to keep women and minorities in competition with each other to distract us while white dudes inject AIDS into our chicken nuggets." —Tracy, Season 1, Episode 1
"Those shoes are definitely bi-curious." —Jack, Season 1, Episode 3
"So, here's some advice I wish I woulda got when I was your age: Live every week like it's Shark Week." —Tracy, Season 1, Episode 4
"No, Tracy took advantage of my white guilt, which is supposed to be used only for good, like over-tipping and supporting Barack Obama." —Liz, Season 1, Episode 5
"You know there are 17 million rats per person in Manhattan. You eat a pound of rat crap every year without even knowing it, huh?" —Dennis, Season 1, Episode 6
"I am a stabbing robot." —Tracy, Season 1, Episode 7
"It's after six. What am I, a farmer?" —Jack, Season 1, Episode 7
"Jack Donaghy is gonna kill me and then he's gonna kill you and then he's gonna fold us up in a pizza and eat us." —Liz, Season 1, Episode 9
"I don't have any money if that's what you're after. And I'm not one of those girls that does weird stuff in bed because they think they have to. If you're a gay guy looking for a beard, I don't do that anymore. And if you're trying to harvest my organs and sell them, I have an uncle who's a cop so don't even try it." —Liz, Season 1, Episode 11
"Lemon, I would like to teach you something. I would like to be Michelle Pfeiffer to your angry black kid who learns that poetry is just another way to rap." —Jack, Season 1, Episode 15
"I believe that the moon does not exist. I believe that vampires are the world's greatest golfers but their curse is they never get a chance to prove it. I believe that there are 31 letters in the white alphabet. Wait... what was the question?" —Tracy, Season 1, Episode 17
"Boy, it's crazy to think we used to settle questions of paternity by dunking a woman in water until she admitted she made it all up. Different time, the '60s." —Dr. Spaceman, Season 1, Episode 18
"I'm not a creative type like you, with your work sneakers and left-handedness." —Jack, Season 1, Episode 19
"The Black Crusaders are a secret group of powerful Black Americans. Bill Cosby and Oprah Winfrey are the chief majors, but Jesse Jackson, Colin Powell and Gordon from Sesame Street, they're members too, and they meet four times a year in the skull of the Statue of Liberty. You can read about that on the Interweb." —Tracy, Season 1, Episode 20
"Lemon, women your age are more likely to get mauled at the zoo than get married." —Jack, Season 2, Episode 1
"Never go with a hippie to a second location." —Jack, Season 2, Episode 4
"Look how Greenzo's testing! They love him in every demographic—colored people, broads, fairies, commies. Gosh, we gotta update these forms." —Jack, Season 2, Episode 5
"Stop eating people's old French fries, pigeon! Have some self respect! Don't you know you can fly?" —Tracy, Season 2, Episode 6
"Lemon, what happened? Did you take an Ambien with your Franzia and sleepwalk here?" —Jack, Season 2, Episode 7
"I do not want to disappoint our Japanese public, especially Godzilla. Hahaha! I'm just kidding, I know he doesn't care what humans do." —Tracy, Season 2, Episode 8
"I don't drink hot liquids of any kind. That's the Devil's temperature!" —Kenneth, Season 2, Episode 10
"The stutter got so bad I was taken out of my grade and put in the special class, held in the boiler room. My only other classmate was named Gilly. He'd fallen though the ice as a child and was technically dead for 57 minutes. They taught us to sweep sawdust so we could find work at a mill. Of course I overcame the stutter in three languages. On to Princeton, Harvard, the top of the business world. I thought I blocked this out, but a thing like this brings back emotions... I feel like I'm back in that boiler room; making little piles of sawdust while Gilly plays with himself in the corner..." —Jack, Season 2, Episode 11
"If reality TV has taught us anything, it's that you can't keep people with no shame down." —Liz, Season 2, Episode 12
"Hey, nerds! Who's got two thumbs, speaks limited French, and hasn't cried once today? This moi." —Liz, Season 2, Episode 13
"I wolfed my Teamster sub for you!" —Liz, Season 2, Episode 14
"I got rid of all my Colin Firth movies in case they consider it erotica."- Liz, Season 3, Episode 1
"One time I laughed at a blind guy eating spaghetti! Sometimes I pee in the shower if I'm really tired! I saw my grandparents making love once and I didn't leave right away!" —Liz, Season 3, Episode 5
"Rich 50 is middle-class 38." —Jack, Season 3, Episode 5
"I give you a simple management suggestion in a professional context, and I get back the second half of a Judy Blume novel." —Jack, Season 3, Episode 9
"No, I'm going to tell Drew that I'm having a little welcome to the building party for him but there is no party and then when he shows up I'll laugh and say 'oh it's the wrong night' and then he'll laugh and say one glass couldn't hurt and then I'll put my mouth on his mouth." —Liz, Season 3, Episode 10
"I wouldn't have this job if it wasn't for the mouth in my back." —Kenneth, Season 3, Episode 11
"If you're watching this, you are an executive of the General Electric Corporation, and the unthinkable has happened. Capitalism is ending, either because of the Soviets or something ridiculous, like a woman President. I'm speaking to you from the year 1987, but the message is timeless: Avoid The Noid!" —Don Geiss, Season 3, Episode 12
"Donuts and bed? What are you depressed about, or celebrating?" —Pete, Season 3, Episode 13
"I really don't think it's fair for me to be on a jury since I'm a hologram." —Liz, Season 3, Episode 14
"Most of that time has been spent trying to come up with a hip, edgy name that would appeal to the marketing holy trinity: college students, the morbidly obese, and homosexuals." —Jack, Season 3, Episode 14
"But why would you want to cut your hair? You look exactly as I imagine Mary Magadalene to be." —Kenneth, Season 3, Episode 15
"Go to Disneyland? Lemon, I've held Walt Disney's frozen head in my hands." —Jack, Season 3, Episode 16
"Lizzing is a combination of laughing and whizzing." —Liz, Season 3, Episode 16
"Yes, the rest of us talked about it last night at Finnegan's, the bar we go to after work. In my dreams." —Kenneth, Season 3, Episode 17
"We have a show tonight. I've never missed a show. Not even the time I had that virus they kept saying only raccoons get." —Liz, Season 3, Episode 18
"The Kid's Choice Awards? Fine, I'll set aside my feud with Raven-Symoné for one day, but she knows what she did." —Jenna, Season 3, Episode 18
"You're wise, Liz Lemon. Like a genetically-manipulated shark." —Tracy, Season 3, Episode 19
"In my experience, 'let's think about it' usually ends up as me watching Solid Gold in my basement on prom night." —Liz, Season 3, Episode 19
"Isn't there a Slanket somewhere you should be filling with your farts?" —Elisa, Season 3, Episode 19
"Don't push it Liz, let it happen. There's gonna be a Mama Mia!" —Liz, Season 3, Episode 21
"If I have learned anything from my SIMS family: When a child doesn't see his father enough he starts to jump up and down, then his mood level will drop until he pees himself." —Liz, Season 3, Episode 21
"Which one is the elevator I'm not afraid of?" —Tracy, Season 4, Episode 1
"When the Parcells first came to America, they lived in a town called Sexcriminalboat." —Kenneth, Season 4, Episode 3
"My mom used to send me articles about how older virgins are considered good luck in Mexico." —Liz, Season 4, Episode 5
"Looks like you got a bad case of the chew-daddies. Ozark kisses? The woodsman's companion?" —Kenneth, Season 4, Episode 5
"Miss Maroney, your Mexican diet pills came. Should I start taking them to test their side effects?" —Kenneth, Season 4, Episode 5
"Global warming? Sorry, sir, that's just scientist talk. The same people who say my grandfather was a monkey. If that's true, why was he killed by a monkey?" —Kenneth, Season 4, Episode 6
"I know it's a girl, Liz Lemon, because I yelled out 'Susan B. Anthony' at the moment of conception." —Tracy, Season 4, Episode 9
"For four years I've had to make do with what passes for men around here, with their untucked shirts, boneless faces, their Stars, both Wars and Trek." —Jack, Season 4, Episode 10,
"You can do some serious subway flirting before you realize the guy is homeless." —Liz, Season 4, Episode 11
"The imaginary enemy. Classic move, Lemon. The Salem Witch Trials, the Red scare, global warming." —Jack, Season 4, Episode 11
"I'm sure she's down there, chain-smoking, sitting on the curb, waiting for me to come out. Just like the day I was born." —Jenna, Season 4, Episode 12
"There ain't no party like a Liz Lemon party 'cause a Liz Lemon party is mandatory!" —Liz, Season 4, Episode 18
"Well I'm sorry Sean, and child actor whose name I can't remember. You haven't walked in my shoes! All my life I've tried to forget the things I've seen: I slept on an old dog bed stuffed with wigs! I watched a prostitute stab a clown! Our basketball hoop was a ribcage! A guy in dreads electrocuted my fish! a crackhead breast-feeding a rat! A homeless man cooking a Hot Pocket on a third rail of the G train! The G train, Nermal!" —Tracy, Season 4, Episode 21
"I've prepared a very unromantic evening. First we're going to see a documentary about female circumcision, and then we're going to eat too much Indian food." —Jack, Season 4, Episode 21
"God, three weddings in one day, I'm going to be in Spanx for 12 hours. My elastic line is gonna get infected again." —Liz, Season 4, Episode 21
"Ambition is the willingness to kill the things you love and eat them in order to stay alive. Haven't you ever read my throw pillow?" —Jack, Season 5, Episode 6
"Trying on jeans is my favorite thing. Maybe later I can get a pap smear from an old male doctor." —Liz, Season 5, Episode 7
"That is actually my thoughtful window staring place. Visitors can go over here." —Jack, Season 5, Episode 8
"I believe that when you have a problem, you talk it over with your priest, or your tailor, or the mute elevator porter at your men's club. Then you take that problem and you crush it with your mind vice. But for lesser beings, like curly haired men and people who need glasses, therapy can help." —Jack, Season 5, Episode 9
"Who hasn't made mistakes? I once french kissed a dog at a party to try to impress what turned out to be a very tall 12 year old." —Liz, Season 5, Episode 12
"I gotta stay serious. From now on the only movies Tracy Jordan makes are about the Holocaust, Georgia O'Keeffe, or both." —Tracy, Season 5, Episode 12
"I can talk to animals. Well not talk to 'em. I can take commands from them." —Kenneth, Season 5, Episode 12
"Michael Kors is a friend—we own a gay racehorse together—and I convinced him to make wizard cloaks fashionable this winter." —Jack, Season 5, Episode 13
"Do you need sex advice? Here's a tip. Sometimes a lady likes to leave her blazer on." —Liz, Season 5, Episode 13
"My heart's pounding like I'm watching Oprah's farewell season." —Liz, Season 5, Episode 15
"Did you really think I wouldn't recognize my college futon, with its trademark absence of sex stains?" —Liz, Season 5, Episode 15
"I want to roll my eyes right now, but the doctor says that if I keep doing it, my ocular muscles might spasm and eject my eyeballs." —Liz, Season 5, Episode 16
"Last night I had sex with Paula, and neither of us was wearing a Walkman." —Pete, Season 5, Episode 19
"This better be important Jack, I was in the middle of buying a bag of bras on eBay. —Liz, Season 5, Episode 20
"I'm still smart enough to know that I'll never do better than you Liz Lemon, cause you're a cook in the bedroom and a whore in the kitchen." —Dennis, Season 5, Episode 21
"Great news Jack. I've got a new life philosophy that I call Lizbianism." —Liz, Season 5, Episode 22
"It's an old Parcell family recipe, but I like to replace the Union soldier meat with boiled potatoes." —Kenneth, Season 5, Episode 23
"Now I'm heading home for a nooner, which is what I call having pancakes for lunch." —Liz, Season 6, Episode 2
"You didn't realize emotion could be a weapon? Have you not read the poetry of Jewel?" —Liz, Season 6, Episode 5
"This is a nightmare. My nemeses—Abigail Breslin and that woman from those Progressive Insurance commercials—are in the audience." —Jenna, Season 6, Episode 7
"Come on Donaghy. You've skied Mount St. Helens, made eye contact with Michelle Bachman, been trapped under a boulder for 128 hours, you're not scared of anything." —Jack, Season 6, Episode 8
"I'm gonna say to you what I say to all my sharks right before they die: Let's go outside." —Tracy, Season 6, Episode 8
"That sofa is made from Seabiscuit." —Jack, Season 6, Episode 10
"Wow, that is some high level paranoid thinking...like Hitler, or Willy Wonka." —Jack, Season 6, Episode 10
"I feel like Oscar the Grouch today, and not just because I woke up in a garbage can this morning startling someone named Gordon." —Tracy, Season 6, Episode 11
"You know what they say boys. If you can't stand the heat, get off of Mickey Rourke's sex grill." —Jenna, Season 6, Episode 16
"Jacky and I know how we feel. We don't have to say it out loud like a couple of gays getting married in jean shorts in Provincetown, while I'm just trying to enjoy an ice cream on the pier." —Colleen, Season 6, Episode 17
"If you're ordering me an edible arrangement to say thanks, I'd prefer a meat one." Liz, Season 6, Episode 17
"From now on you write and shoot the whole season in two weeks, like Wheel of Fortune or Fox News." —Jack, Season 6, Episode 19
"Recent studies have shown that while pregnancy is disgusting, babies do not need tar or nicotine." —Dr. Spaceman, Season 6, Episode 19
"She has the brain of a man, and the ass of a French teenager." —Jack, Season 6, Episode 21
"Liz Lemon has had a little awakening in her bathing suit area." —Liz, Season 7, Episode 3
"You look like that flashcard they told me means sadness." —Jenna, Season 7, Episode 3
"Like any penis, Florida is very complicated." —Tracy, Season 7, Episode 4
"She's aging, mean, and rich. That sounds Republican to me." —Jack, Season 7, Episode 5
"Why are my arms so weak? It's like I did that pushup last year for nothing!" —Liz, Season 7, Episode 6
"I didn't trust that scoutmaster. He was always wearing shorts." —Colleen, Season 7, Episode 8
"For every orphan Annie, there's a 30-year-old Russian dwarf who's just pretending to be a child, according to a movie that I watched part of." —Liz, Season 7, Episode 9
"I assumed it was the bottle of wine with the card reading 'Dear Doritos, what about just selling bags full of your dust? I could put it on chicken or fish...'" —Jack, Season 7, Episode 10
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