Daniel 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.”

“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 A...”

“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 sugge...”

“Everyone wants to be liked; everyone wants approval. No one likes being ignored.”

“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 her...”

“Eighty per cent of my output is 'Mallory clowns on the Western canon,' and I'm happy to be that person.”

“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.”

“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...”

“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, op...”

“A lot of my creative energy is spent coming up with a concept that, once I get it, I feel like it writes itself.”

“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 curre...”

“In my final year of attending a Christian sports camp in rural Missouri, the year before I started high school, they began to offer an elective Bible study group for young Christians who wan...”

“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 exp...”

“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 lik...”

“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.”

“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 t...”

“It certainly was unusual growing up with two fairly well-known pastors as my parents.”

“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 al...”

“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 younge...”