I cannot stress enough that the answer to life’s questions is often in people’s faces. Try putting your iPhones down once in a while, and look in people’s faces. People’s faces will tell you amazing things. Like if they are angry, or nauseous or asleep.

Poehler’s line is a comic but pointed reminder that much of what we need to know about others—and about a situation—can be read in immediate, human cues rather than in screens or abstract “answers.” By urging people to put down their iPhones and look at faces, she contrasts mediated attention with embodied presence. The punchline list (angry, nauseous, asleep) underscores how obvious and information-rich facial expressions are, while also satirizing how distracted we’ve become that we might miss even these signals. The quote ultimately advocates for empathy and observational attentiveness: real connection and practical understanding often begin with simply noticing the people in front of us.