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
Anything where I get to write a lot of jokes and have a lot of creative control – that’s all I want. – Mallory Ortberg
It’s an unfortunate reality of life that toxins are constantly building up in our bodies. – Mallory Ortberg
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
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
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
Usually my writing is very over the top and bombastic and very, like, ‘I’m amazing! Look at me!’ – Mallory Ortberg
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
I think female solitude is a mental condition as well as a physical state. You can be married and a spinster. I think spinster is an identity every woman can claim, if she will… I feel like a lot of women, or a lot of feminists, joke about taking to the sea or living alone in a cottage as this kind of fun freedom. – Mallory Ortberg
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
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
My history teacher could make us feel like he was imparting rare gossip to us when he was talking about Maria Theresa and the Habsburgs. I just loved that sense of – the Western canon is here, and it’s gossipy and tawdry, and everyone is sort of goofy. – Mallory Ortberg
I have fun going on Twitter and the Internet. I feel safe and comfortable, and I wish everyone could feel that way. – Mallory Ortberg
When I think of Emily Dickinson, there’s not one particular poem of hers that jumps out, but I do have a very vivid image of an ill woman with giant eyes who wants to write about the sun exploding. – Mallory Ortberg
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
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
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
It’s so, so awful for my entire body and my spine and my hands, and I have a perfectly good desk to write at, but I don’t care. I love writing in bed. – Mallory Ortberg
It certainly was unusual growing up with two fairly well-known pastors as my parents. – Mallory Ortberg
