Before I had a double mastectomy, I was already pretty flat-chested, and I made so many jokes over the years about how small my chest was that I started to think that maybe my boobs overheard me... and were just like, 'You know what? We're sick of this. Let's kill her.'
Interpretation
The quote humorously reflects on the author's self-deprecating jokes about her body and their unexpected impact.
In this quote, Tig Notaro uses humor to address her experience of undergoing a double mastectomy while also highlighting the absurdity of her self-deprecating jokes about her body. By personifying her breasts and suggesting they might have taken offense to her jokes, she creates a comedic narrative that reveals her coping mechanism in dealing with serious health issues and societal pressures about body image.
In practice
This quote can be shared during a speech on coping mechanisms in difficult times.
I get kind of, um, bored by all the sexuality and gender labels because I feel like that's where the problem comes in, when people feel that they need to have these particular identities. If you didn't have these labels, and you just acted on how you genuinely felt at any point, then you wouldn't have anything to contend with.
People write me every day. It feels like this cycle that keeps giving, because as far along as I get in my happiness and success, hearing other people's stories is a constant reminder of where I came from, where people are, and how much help everybody still needs.
It's not the child's responsibility to teach the parent who they are. It's the parent's responsibility to learn who the child is.
It's important that when you do standup, you do small places like coffee shops and also big places like colleges. It helps you find the little nuances in your set that don't work, and you can shave off the excess.
When you first start out in stand-up and, probably, as any performer, you enjoy the attention so much, and even though that hasn't died down on stage, it certainly has satiated whatever was in me that was needing that much attention. When I'm off stage, it's not something that I really need.
People have responded to my stories so well. They come up after a show and say things like, 'Your album really helped me,' or 'I have stage four cancer. I'm terminally ill.' Somebody told me it gave them the courage to die.
When you look like your passport photo, it's time to go home.
Afraid of death? Not at all. Be a great relief. Then I wouldn't have to talk to you.
Male authors always take care to make their heroes at least one inch taller than they are, and considerably more muscular. Just as female authors give their heroines better hair and slimmer thighs.
A sense of humor is the ability to understand a joke-and that the joke is oneself.
When I first started doing my comedy act, I just desperately needed material. So I took literally everything I knew how to do on stage with me, which was juggling, magic and banjo and my little comedy routines. I always felt the audience sorta tolerated the serious musical parts while I was doing my comedy.
Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.
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