Top 100 Mallory Ortberg Quotes
#1. The most successful Subway customers, of course, are the ones who can't keep their hands off their sandwich. Join your artist in the sandwich assembling process. That sneeze guard is a suggestion. That sneeze guard is trying to intimidate you into staying on the customer's side of the partition.
Mallory Ortberg
#2. Not wanting to give everyone in your life one of your kidneys is not the same thing as hoping they die of kidney failure.
Mallory Ortberg
#3. I have a lot of faith in the power of joking to make something thoughtful.
Mallory Ortberg
#4. Someone who has a disability is not necessarily in distress. You may be embarrassing and inconveniencing someone by butting in and making assumptions.
Mallory Ortberg
#5. I love reading religious authors. Especially in the sort of circle I move in, people tend to be more secular, and I love reading books by just really smart people of religious faith. It's always a really cool perspective.
Mallory Ortberg
#7. With a few exceptions, birds are not to be trusted; it is not normal to have such soft, vulnerable bodies bookended with slashing beaks and razor-sharp claws. It is as unnatural as an armed marshmallow.
Mallory Ortberg
#8. I don't think it's a requirement that a happy, fulfilling relationship also provide the best sex of all time.
Mallory Ortberg
#9. 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.
Mallory Ortberg
#10. 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.
Mallory Ortberg
#11. Usually my writing is very over the top and bombastic and very, like, 'I'm amazing! Look at me!'
Mallory Ortberg
#12. My parents are both pastors. In the '80s and '90s in the mainstream Christian world, it was not really common for a woman - especially a married woman and a mother - to be a pastor.
Mallory Ortberg
#13. I do not think it is selfish to want to donate a kidney "only" to family members.
Mallory Ortberg
#14. "Not being virulently and overtly racist against black people" and "treating gay people like human beings" are necessary conditions of greatness.
Mallory Ortberg
#15. I love 'Jane Eyre,' and I love the Bronte sisters. I actually didn't read any of them until I was in college, so I don't have quite the same connection with them that I think a lot of women do.
Mallory Ortberg
#16. I do not have any of even the littlest hard feelings all of my feelings about you are just so soft and so normal just normal soft feelings that you're going to love
Mallory Ortberg
#17. I have fun going on Twitter and the Internet. I feel safe and comfortable, and I wish everyone could feel that way.
Mallory Ortberg
#18. A child is not a bargaining chip or a learning tool. Your focus, if you adopt a child of a different race, should be on nurturing and protecting your child from bigotry, not deploying him or her as an anti-racist Mr. Fix-It.
Mallory Ortberg
#19. I'm forgetful by nature and often ask family, friends, and co-workers the same question.
Mallory Ortberg
#20. We went to church twice a week. My parents were employed in ministry; we prayed before dinner. We rollerbladed in the summer. We were allowed to watch the 'Simpsons.' I fought with my younger brother over Legos.
Mallory Ortberg
#21. I'm of the belief that dating "potential" is almost always an exercise in frustration.
Mallory Ortberg
#22. You don't need to hide the fact that you're in recovery, but you don't have to share your history of addiction with acquaintances at work, either.
Mallory Ortberg
#23. There are few things more disconcerting than realizing the first date you thought went so well was in fact a dud.
Mallory Ortberg
#24. Kids know when they're getting yelled at and mocked, I can assure you.
Mallory Ortberg
#25. The mere idea of asking a family member if they intentionally stopped sending me an annual bonus makes me feel like breaking out in hives.
Mallory Ortberg
#26. Everyone wants to be liked; everyone wants approval. No one likes being ignored.
Mallory Ortberg
#27. 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."
Mallory Ortberg
#28. You need to be able to express your resentment and sense of loss in a way that doesn't damage your partner.
Mallory Ortberg
#29. Anyone who wants to pretend that your Huntington's disease is an invention is someone who does not have your best interests at heart.
Mallory Ortberg
#30. Periodontal bacteria can easily slip into the bloodstream and cause infection elsewhere in the body.
Mallory Ortberg
#31. 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.
Mallory Ortberg
#32. Tenancy laws can be so complicated; I want to make sure OP is protected as much as possible.
Mallory Ortberg
#33. I agree that biphobia is real, but I think it's absolutely worth considering that someone who "despises" having sex with her husband - and men in general - may not be interested in men sexually.
Mallory Ortberg
#34. LGBT youth face a much higher risk of violence and homelessness after being rejected by their family of origin.
Mallory Ortberg
#35. Your partner cannot fault you for refusing to host a perpetual-motion party or for the fact that you must sleep and will eventually die.
Mallory Ortberg
#36. There has to be some kind of personal hygiene bar that a person needs to clear in order for a relationship to be successful.
Mallory Ortberg
#37. why did you turn my friends into pigs i don't know maybe the real question is why are your friends so turn-into-pigsable
Mallory Ortberg
#38. 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.
Mallory Ortberg
#40. Eighty per cent of my output is 'Mallory clowns on the Western canon,' and I'm happy to be that person.
Mallory Ortberg
#42. 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.
Mallory Ortberg
#43. The hardest part about being ghosted is the fact that you can't deal with the ghoster directly. You just never hear from them again, and everything feels odd and incomplete.
Mallory Ortberg
#44. 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.
Mallory Ortberg
#45. There are alternatives to pregnancy if you want another child.
Mallory Ortberg
#47. 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.
Mallory Ortberg
#48. A lot of my creative energy is spent coming up with a concept that, once I get it, I feel like it writes itself.
Mallory Ortberg
#49. I'm pretty sure there's no sexuality that justifies constant low-level harassment.
Mallory Ortberg
#50. Enjoy your relationship with your boyfriend and don't worry about the people or situations you dream about. Once you wake up, they're over; let them go.
Mallory Ortberg
#51. I graduated with an English degree and worked for awhile in academic publishing.
Mallory Ortberg
#53. To stop challenging someone from using anti-gay language simply because they persist in using anti-gay language strikes me as a defeatist approach.
Mallory Ortberg
#54. There's simply no way you can tell a woman you work with that you disapprove of her relationship with her adult child, no matter how much you think it would be better for him to move out.
Mallory Ortberg
#55. A woman who repeatedly asks a man she knows to be gay when he's going to get married and have children is not trying to let sleeping dogs lie.
Mallory Ortberg
#56. You can care very much about someone without being capable of becoming their primary caregiver in the event of their parents' untimely death.
Mallory Ortberg
#57. Some people give gifts in order to bewilder, confuse, and manipulate their recipients.
Mallory Ortberg
#58. I hate to get gender essentialist, but I'm starting to think that a lot of married men have some sort of heterosexually induced dentistry aversion.
Mallory Ortberg
#59. Addicts sometimes have a penchant for becoming the center of attention at other people's celebrations.
Mallory Ortberg
#60. Humor is always more interesting when it comes from someone who's had more than, like, five experiences.
Mallory Ortberg
#61. The Toast's audience is about 30-35 percent male, which shocked me because I would say that we actively try to discourage men from reading our site. Apparently, there's not insignificant number of dudes out there who think that what we are doing is okay.
Mallory Ortberg
#62. No one is right when it comes to destination weddings. It's a big ask, requesting people take time off work and fly off to take a cruise just to see you get married.
Mallory Ortberg
#63. Ghost! I miss him! Is that weird? I miss him even though I invented him. I feel a lot of tenderness toward him. I don't write a lot of stuff that is sad or that is tender and affectionate, so that has a very special place in my heart.
Mallory Ortberg
#64. It certainly was unusual growing up with two fairly well-known pastors as my parents.
Mallory Ortberg
#65. I spent the first 22 years of my life absorbing everything, like a big disgusting cell, and now I'm disgorging it with jokes added out into the world. That's a really gross metaphor.
Mallory Ortberg
#66. 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.
Mallory Ortberg
#67. You are allowed to draw lines even if your feelings are irrational. Part of the marvelous business of being an adult human is that you get to set your own boundaries for whatever reasons you like, without appending a sensible rationale to them.
Mallory Ortberg
#68. If and when you do decide to share your experience with your husband, it should be because you feel ready to do so, not for any other reason.
Mallory Ortberg
#70. Usually, the first thing I do when I wake up is I start working, so I often won't start the day by reading anything because I like to minimize my 'commute' as much as possible. I wake up, open my laptop and start working in bed.
Mallory Ortberg
#71. There's no specific mission statement for the 'Toast.'
Mallory Ortberg
#72. I'm on Twitter a lot of the day because I really like Twitter. It's great for jokes. But when I'm writing, I can't do anything else. I can't even listen to music. I just have to write, and then I can do something else. I can't multitask.
Mallory Ortberg
#73. haha must have been a weird typo it's illegal to hunt men but exhilarating
Mallory Ortberg
#74. My credentials, briefly: I no longer go to church or believe in God, but I can still name every one of the fruits of the Spirit and reeled for days upon hearing the announcement that Audio Adrenaline was reunited with one of the singers from DC Talk.
Mallory Ortberg
#75. You who have suffered so much do not want to be with the kind of person who makes "black widow" jokes to deal with an uncomfortable, painful moment. You should be with a person capable of great compassion and understanding.
Mallory Ortberg
#76. Five-foot-8 is a perfectly normal height for a woman - it's slightly but not at all unusually tall and certainly shouldn't be causing you any torment.
Mallory Ortberg
#77. you're damn right it'd be something caves of ice and ancestral war voices prophesying about damsels and sacred rivers screaming beware and your hair would float and ugh hang on two seconds there's a guy here
Mallory Ortberg
#78. whoa
I wasn't LOOKING at a bird
wow where is this even coming from
the BIRD
wouldn't stop LOOKING
at ME
Mallory Ortberg
#79. 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.
Mallory Ortberg
#80. 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.
Mallory Ortberg
#81. Someone who responds to "Please don't grope me" with whining and pouting isn't a friend. He's an asshole and a predator.
Mallory Ortberg
#82. Depression cannot be overcome by listing a series of good things in one's life, any more than a broken foot can be healed by thinking about all the other bones you have that aren't broken.
Mallory Ortberg
#83. i'm going to kidnap your daughter someday and i won't let your nephew learn how to read because of how much i love you and scream at your grave and i'll rent your room out to some guy from London
Mallory Ortberg
#85. Anything where I get to write a lot of jokes and have a lot of creative control - that's all I want.
Mallory Ortberg
#86. I'm really not a journalist, and I don't do a ton of newsy pieces. Occasionally I'll write about something that's going on recently, but I really don't do a ton of stuff that's tied to current events.
Mallory Ortberg
#87. 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.
Mallory Ortberg
#88. I attended an evangelical Christian university on the outskirts of suburban Los Angeles and by the time of my graduation was neither evangelical nor Christian.
Mallory Ortberg
#89. 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.
Mallory Ortberg
#90. Some struggling marriages can be salvaged with hard work and counseling; others should be dismantled and stripped for parts.
Mallory Ortberg
#91. It's an unfortunate reality of life that toxins are constantly building up in our bodies.
Mallory Ortberg
#92. If just one person touches you without your permission, stepping back and saying clearly, "Please don't touch me" should get them to stop.
Mallory Ortberg
#93. One of the things that would be great is to some day have so many women comedy writers that we wouldn't say there's just one type of female humor. There's lots.
Mallory Ortberg
#94. Don't let a friend make you feel publicly uncomfortable indefinitely just because they're probably a lesbian.
Mallory Ortberg
#95. You have a wonderful opportunity here to not care about something that doesn't matter to you. Please don't miss out on it.
Mallory Ortberg
#96. Reciprocating oral sex is, in general, a very good idea!
Mallory Ortberg
#97. Did you know that, pound for pound, the moose is the leanest ruminant on Earth? It's true. Moose are very in tune with their natural surroundings.
Mallory Ortberg
#99. I'm of the opinion that it is always a kind and appropriate decision to get in touch with someone who's lost a loved one to remind them that you're thinking of them and have fond memories of the deceased.
Mallory Ortberg
#100. In the hands of a passive-aggressive person who wants to abdicate responsibility for things, texting is a great tool. You can really go nuts.
Mallory Ortberg
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