Quotes from Laurie Notaro

Your ankles are swollen from carrying the weight of the patriarchy all of these years."—Danika Hill, MAW

Do you know that I saw a picture of myself and genuinely thought that someone had eaten a powdered doughnut over my head?

I felt so powerful that I wanted to go to Costco and wheel out a freezer on a dolly while waving around an old Safeway receipt, just because I knew I could. It's easy. I'm supposed to be so harmless and weak and afraid that no one pays attention. But those weeks of dye stripping and returning to my natural state created a phenomenon in which the world had literally become mine for the taking.

I realized that you don't try on a pair of pants, fart in them, and then put them back on the shelf, and the same rough politeness applied here, too. Plain and simple, I bled on it, I bought it.

We're an Italian family, and food is as important to the holiday as a virgin giving birth to an illegitimate baby in a horse stall.

I've seen more than half a century of events. I've seen so much stuff that I had to purge 90 percent of my childhood memories from my brain in order to make room for passwords and PINs.

Things in my environment had gotten a little bit out of my control, as things sometimes do. I mean, we can't control every little facet of our world all of the time...

In the Anthropologie mirror, I saw wrinkles, dents, flaps, bumps, and something that caused me to say to myself, "I hope that's a tumor and not a horn.

so when they are running from uphill, it makes a tremendous amount of noise. That is very bothersome, especially if they have big feet.

Bad boyfriends don't disguise themselves; their girlfriends do it for them.

I had been diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) in my early thirties, when most doctors didn't even know it existed. Symptoms include sudden weight gain (check), irregular periods (check), chin hair (check), high triglyceride levels (check), and, the kicker, insulin resistance (check, check, check).

Because we are superwomen. Because it's how we are. We're high, we're sleep deprived, and we're still doing all the shit. If my husband doesn't get his full eight hours, he'll mention it the whole next day, as if he spent the dark time keeping flesh-eating zombies from gaining entry to our house. Not middle-aged women. They get up from a bed they've never slept in, put on an underwire and some mascara, and do it all over again. And no one knows.

I do not come from a family of singers. When we get together and warble Happy Birthday to one another over cake and candle, it doesn't sound as much like a song as it does a pack of jackals yapping over a fresh carcass. And in my case, it's nothing that you want to inflict on the innocent, or at least on people who haven't reported us to the city yet. Who is flat, off-key or tone deaf in the Notaro clan is all up in the air--it doesn't matter, and we can't tell, anyway.

People act poorly because other people have let them act poorly, and they have been able to get away with it for a lifetime. There is no sense of consequence. So I called a lawyer who looked up the

And you know, I really have to say this: If your baby isn't even in the room and you can't bear to come equipped with a blanket, kindly put your boob away in its rightful compartment. Don't leave it hanging out for ten to fifteen minutes at a barbecue like you're waiting for someone to hang a Christmas ornament on it.

Let me tell you about Tidy. She's smug, self-important, and frankly, just an asshole.

Now, I'm sure you are thinking, were they really children, or were they adults who hadn't eaten protein or calcium in so many years that their bone structure was actually in an advanced state of atrophy and they appeared much smaller than people who eat food?

had to purge 90 percent of my childhood memories from my brain in order to make room for passwords and PINs.

This is not a midlife crisis car," I corrected him. "This is a midlife memory car!

I cannot bear that lowering myself from the waist down will force one fat roll to collide with another like Earth's tectonic plates, and the subduction energy that results will bring me faster to unconsciousness than sniffing glue.

I'm telling you, every house with filthy windows has a pervert inside. Animals. Dirty minds have dirty windows. Everyone knows that. But I wouldn't worry about the Super Rapist if I were you, especially if he gets a good look at you from behind. I'd say you were probably pretty far down on his list." As

Oh my God," my husband said with a gasp, reading further. "He beat three men into unconsciousness? Alone? What is this, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Rapist? Does he fly and run across treetops? How long are his nails? What do you think his record for man beating is? Do we need four guys in the house at all times? Do we need five? You know, I could start a band and we could practice here.

Remember the root spray color I used to extend trips to the colorist? Guess what can disguise thin spots too? The same thing! Spray hair! I know we all laughed at the Ronco guy in the '80s who marketed hair in a can, but he was onto something. You just have to be careful not to go all Rudy Giuliani and use so much that it drools down your face like an oil rig is hovering above you.

I found out that the treatment for restless leg syndrome is a nice, tidy dose of Klonopin, a beautiful little orange tablet, every night. After I got my prescription, every night I got to drift away to sleep on a delicious benzo cloud.