Daniel M. Lavery > Quotes

“frosting emergencies are just as real as other kinds of emergencies”
― Mallory Ortberg, Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters

“-I WOULD BREATHE FOR YOU MY JANE
JANE WHERE HAVE YOU GONE
I AM BEREFT WITHOUT MY JANE
I SHALL SINK INTO ROGUERY

-i am with my cousins

-WHICH COUSIN
IS IT THE SEXY ONE

-Please don't try to talk to me again

-IS IT YOUR SEXY COUSIN
"ST. JOHN"
WHAT KIND OF NAME IS ST. JOHN

-I'm not going to answer that

-I KNEW IT
DID YOU LEAVE BECAUSE OF MY ATTIC WIFE
IS THAT WHAT THIS IS ABOUT

-yes
Absolutely

-BECAUSE MY HOUSE IN FRANCE DOESN'T EVEN HAVE AN ATTIC
IF THAT'S WHAT YOU WERE WORRIED ABOUT
IT HAS A CELLAR THOUGH SO YOU KNOW
DON'T CROSS ME
HAHA I'M ONLY JOKING”
― Mallory Ortberg, Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters

“what is a dream but a series of lies designed to keep us immobilized in a dark room for hours at a time”
― Mallory Ortberg, Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters

“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, Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters

“She could not understand how she was here, when she had never said yes to being brought anywhere. She could not remember speaking to him, much less agreeing. She was beginning to learn the danger of silence, and that someone who wishes to hear a yes will not go out of his way to listen for a no.”
― Mallory Ortberg, The Merry Spinster

“I do not welcome Lord Vader quite literally attempting tot shove his religious beliefs down my throat.”
― Mallory Ortberg, Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View

“I expect it's hard for witches ... now that most people work in shops and factories, and haven't any crops to ruin. They must be terribly sad, those witches, to have to go from blighting wheat fields to blighting houseplants.”
― Mallory Ortberg, The Merry Spinster

“I don't mind it so much when they're fully dead, you understand. Something that's supposed to be dead, and is dead, that's no surprise but there's something about a creature that GOING to be dead but isn't yet, something that KNOWS it's going to be dead and doesn't want to be. I've never liked that.”
― Mallory Ortberg, The Merry Spinster

“he was wrong, and trying to crush someone else’s windpipe doesn’t make you any less wrong,”
― Mallory Ortberg, Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View

“Perhaps you would not like being married to me,' Beauty said. 'I do not know how to talk to people, and I have terrible taste in shirts.”
― Mallory Ortberg, The Merry Spinster

“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, Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters

“-I taught you Hindi and everything
That's basically the same as getting engaged for missionaries

-And I really appreciate that
It will be terribly useful in my career as an English governess

-See?
That
There.
that is exactly the kind of tone I mean
One round of cholera in the tropics would sear that sarcasm right out of you

-guess I really missed out

-Guess so”
― Mallory Ortberg, Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters

“when I die I wish to be buried in that Shawl I wish to be buried — in ten Thousand Shawls – you’re not dying you’re just afraid of the stairs”
― Mallory Ortberg, Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters

“I never know how to refer to previous incarnations of myself in a way that honestly acknowledges the present without sacrificing the past.”
― Daniel M. Lavery, Something That May Shock and Discredit You

“what will you do if you go home?

i dunno
stuff grows out of the ground if you put stuff in it
so maybe ill do that

farming?

yeah
go home and put stuff in the ground and no one will take the girls i like
and i hope you all die in this stupid war

you don't mean that

you don't mean your face

what?

leave me alone”
― Mallory Ortberg, Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters

“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, Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters

“Then: “A man in a mustache is at the door to see Beauty,” Sylvia said one afternoon. “He looks as though he were going to speak German at me.”
― Mallory Ortberg, The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror

“Aren't you supposed to be an educated woman?'

'No. Purely decorative. I read a story once; it was terrible and my head ached for days.”
― Mallory Ortberg, The Merry Spinster

“first of all she’s not my girlfriend second of all denmark is a PRISON”
― Mallory Ortberg, Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters

“If you will not marry me,” Mr. Beale said, “perhaps I will die of grief.” Beauty’s expression did not change. “I’m so unused to compliments. I’m afraid that I take them quite seriously.”
― Mallory Ortberg, The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror

“hang all mysteries the only mystery I want to solve is how much cocaine I can fit in my face the mystery of how much face cocaine I can have that’s the mystery for me”
― Mallory Ortberg, Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters

“But there was a curse on Laius. The curse was Daddy Issues. Only a daddy can have Daddy Issues.
The Daddy Issues of Laius include: insisting on taking your children hiking even after they start crying
ignoring the collective good and stiffing oracles, who depend on tips
refusing to save the city
letting four attendants take the hit
failing to bring a vehicle to a complete stop before proceeding into the intersection”
― Daniel M. Lavery, Something That May Shock and Discredit You

“Being a grown-up is a joy that has never lost its shine.”
― Daniel M. Lavery, Something That May Shock and Discredit You

“Bridegrooms always know their true brides, through the strategic use of horse heads and love tokens.”
― Mallory Ortberg, The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror

“you'll kill our blood baby but you won't have sex with me”
― Mallory Ortberg, Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters

“maybe the real question is why are your friends so turn-into-pigsable”
― Mallory Ortberg, Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters

“Does Tess like me?” David asked. “I haven’t the faintest idea,” Alison said. “She hasn’t done anything to suggest she doesn’t, has she?” “No, not exactly, only—she looks at one as though she disapproves of how one parts one’s hair, or spells one’s name, somehow.”
― Mallory Ortberg, The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror

“what is this
name remembering day”
― Mallory Ortberg, Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters

“Being beautiful had never prevented her from remaining in the woods alone before, but there was nothing she could do about it. Beauty was what gave him the right to talk to her as if they had been introduced, and take her hand, and make her wear his cloak, and take her from her tree and to his home.”
― Mallory Ortberg, The Merry Spinster

“this publisher guy
is asking me about my favorite canto in Child Harolde
that’s like asking someone to pick who’s hotter
his half-sister or his cousins
it’s literally impossible”
― Mallory Ortberg, Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters