Mallory Ortberg Quotes

You can't ever put yourself in a position where someone is requiring you to inhabit somebody else's energy. You have to own your thing, or own it with very fiber of your being.

The power of 'no' means you're educating people in how to treat you.

Nobody owes anything to anybody. You are your authentic self to whom and when you choose to be, and if you don't know somebody, then why would you explain to them how you live your life?

I have never given others a chance to exploit me.

My health is no one's business.

I had an upbringing to respect other people's privacy and their right to be and choose what they want, and I expect - no, demand - no less for myself.

Having feelings doesn't mean you have to have sex.

I respect my boundaries, and I insist that others respect them, too.

The feelings of another person should never be imposed upon us as a law.

I love you - but don't touch me.

One can never ask anyone to change a feeling.

We must come together in ways that respect the solitude of the soul that avoid the unconscious violence we do when we try to save each other that evoke our capacity to hold another life without dishonoring its mystery never trying to coerce the other into meeting our own needs.

I don’t care what people think…I learned a long time ago…I was 19 and had a very traumatic experience….and I learned that I have to go to bed with myself at night and that I have to please myself…and as long as I don’t go out of my way to offend anybody that I love, upset my mother or my husband…I’ll do my own thing. And if the public doesn’t like it, it’s their problem, not mine.

You don't get to Define me, only I can Define me, all I wish from you is to recognize my Definition.

...no one can do a thing about feelings, they exist and there's no way to censor them. We can reproach ourselves for some action, for a remark, but not for a feeling, quite simply because we have no control at all over it.

Your feelings are none of your business.

It's instinctive in a certain kind of painting...It's like a nervous system. It's not described, it's happening. The feeling is going on with the task. The line is the feeling, from a soft thing, a dreamy thing, to something hard, something arid, something lonely, something ending, something beginning.

Children aren't coloring books. You don't get to fill them with your favorite colors.

I am free. If I want to be sad, it is my freedom. If I want to be happy, it is my freedom. Once you know that you are your world, you have penetrated into a different kind of understanding. Then nothing else matters - all else is games and excuses.

I knew I wasn't attractive, and I was very happy about that. I didn't want to be attractive. I didn't want to attract. As long as no one wanted to be let in, I didn't have to shut anyone out.

I've always been a very sexual person. That doesn't mean I'm going around feeling my breasts and pressing myself against men, but I'm a sexual being.

I won't let love disrupt, corrupt, or interrupt me.

Not like a heart, which let people in without permission, held them in a special place she never had any say in and then yearned for them to remain there longer than they planned.

Today I don't have to fit into anyone else's emotional atmosphere.

Do we as adults have the right to make decisions about what we put in our own bodies and what we experience with our own consciousness without reference to the powers of the state, or must we seek permission from the state in order to explore our own consciousness?