Mallory Ortberg Quotes

I love the art history ones because it's so little work for me. There's so many paintings that when I look at them, the look on the lady's face is like so clear and her body language and her posture or their physical situation is so immediately recognizable. Anyone who's been in a conversation they didn't want to have, or been getting harangued by a little kid they didn't want to pay attention to or been tired and wanted to go to bed is just like, "Yes, of course."

We are all going to die, sometimes even in the middle of a lease.

Periodontal bacteria can easily slip into the bloodstream and cause infection elsewhere in the body.

Reciprocating oral sex is, in general, a very good idea!

Not wanting to give everyone in your life one of your kidneys is not the same thing as hoping they die of kidney failure.

Letting events end is not rude. Everything ends.

Some people give gifts in order to bewilder, confuse, and manipulate their recipients.

Worrying seems like a fairly natural state of being for a parent, so feel free to worry as much as you want.

As you feel increasingly comfortable around your friends, I think it's more than fine to share the basic details of your heroin addiction with them. If they seem receptive, you can feel free to talk about it in further detail; if they seem judgmental or uncomfortable, you can move on to other topics.

You can care very much about someone without being capable of becoming their primary caregiver in the event of their parents' untimely death.

"Not being virulently and overtly racist against black people" and "treating gay people like human beings" are necessary conditions of greatness.

Many fathers go their entire lives without announcing how sexy their son's old girlfriends are.

It's one thing to be a high achiever; it's quite another to privately sneer at your girlfriend's friends after feigning friendliness because they have the "misfortune" to drive a bus for a living.

In no state in America is it legal for a landlord to demand their tenants lead a "healthy lifestyle" in order to rent property.

Don't let a friend make you feel publicly uncomfortable indefinitely just because they're probably a lesbian.

You can't prevent a possible future closeness between your upcoming child and one or more of their grandparents.

You have a wonderful opportunity here to not care about something that doesn’t matter to you. Please don’t miss out on it.

Arm yourself with as many options as possible before making your next move.

Knowledge of death is the beginning of wisdom.

Addicts sometimes have a penchant for becoming the center of attention at other people's celebrations.

So many people choose silence after the immediate wake of a death out of fear of saying something out of turn or "bringing up bad memories" that bereaved people often feel forgotten.

As long as you don't think he's just pretending not to mind for your sake, it sounds like he has truly accepted that blow jobs are too difficult and painful for you to perform, and he's still very satisfied with your sex life. Take him at his word.

You need to be able to express your resentment and sense of loss in a way that doesn't damage your partner.

I don't know of any way to control the subject of one's dreams although I'm fairly certain there are more than a few types of psychoanalysis dedicated to the topic.

One of the glorious things about being a person in the world is that you don't have to worry about whether or not someone else is trying to be creepy.

Don't badger people without children into admitting the secret desire for children you're sure they have to you! Don't badger anyone! Leave the badgering to the badgers.

Acting politely in front of someone black and/or gay and then making horrible claims about their intelligence or worth as human beings after they leave the room is not kindness - it's hypocrisy.

You're right to want to minimize your compulsive physical behavior in the workplace before it bothers your co-workers, but I hope very much you can also give yourself credit for the work you're already doing.

Most of us, however committed we are to our ideals, will find ourselves every now and again reading an attention-grabbing headline from the Daily Mail or some other lowest-common denominator. That's not the same thing as frequenting a site like the white supremacist Stormfront.

It can't hurt to have a backup.

If you don't like potlucks, the solution to your problem is "don't go to potlucks," not "insist other people don't have them."

Nothing good comes of reading other people's emails.

If just one person touches you without your permission, stepping back and saying clearly, "Please don't touch me" should get them to stop.

Anyone who thinks it’s funny to name their network "Tom’sHugeEtc" is going to think it’s funny that one of his neighbors is also named Tom and is embarrassed by it.

If you go out with someone and decide you don't want to see them again, do them the courtesy of saying, "Hey, I had a nice time, but I don't think things are going to work out between us." Only you can help fight ghosting.

An adult woman should not be so possessive of her own birthday that she begrudges her friends the chance to get married on the same day.

You have a right to be treated professionally at work, and it's your supervisor's job to make sure all their employees can perform their duties comfortably and safely.

If you’re so forgetful that you’re incapable of remembering that a co-worker isn’t pregnant on three separate occasions in as many months, I worry about your memory and cognition skills.

If someone you know is diagnosed with cancer, give them a call or send them a letter to tell them how sorry you are and to let them know how much you care.

To stop challenging someone from using anti-gay language simply because they persist in using anti-gay language strikes me as a defeatist approach.

You, too, will someday die, perhaps under inconvenient circumstances, at a time when you do not particularly wish to, and for causes that you cannot yet predict.