Daily Inspiration Quote by Doris Roberts

There is a quiet defiance in that comma: not just a funny lady. Doris Roberts is pushing back on the soft tyranny of likability, the way sitcom success can turn a working actor into a comforting mascot. Comedy, especially the kind that lives in America’s living rooms, often gets treated like accidental talent - as if timing is charm, not craft. Roberts insists on the opposite. She’s naming the job.

The line also reads like a response to a particular kind of praise that’s really a limitation: You’re so funny. For actresses, that compliment can become a box lined with sequins and motherhood archetypes, especially for women who hit their mainstream peak later. Roberts, best known to many as the sharp-edged matriarch on Everybody Loves Raymond, had a career that stretched far beyond the punchline. Her point isn’t that comedy is beneath her; it’s that comedy has been used to shrink her.

“Actress” carries claim-staking weight. It’s professional, disciplined, a word that asks to be taken seriously in an industry that too often treats older women as quirks, not artists. “Funny lady,” by contrast, is deliberately informal - faintly patronizing, like a guest at a party being introduced as entertainment. Roberts’ intent is to remind you that the laughs are the surface effect of choices: rhythm, presence, control, precision. The subtext is blunt: stop applauding me like I’m charming; start crediting me like I’m skilled.