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.
I thought such awful thoughts that I cannot even say them out loud because they would make Jesus want to drink gin straight out of the cat dish.
Comedy needs to happen naturally and be in touch with the character. When you see that guy in your office that everybody laughs at, he doesn't think he's funny. He's just being him, and that's the joke.
I have always felt that humor was a wonderful vehicle to let us become connected with each other and ourselves… I try to portray the similarities and polarities in men and women, so that we_x000D_ can acknowledge and embrace our collective consciousness.
Anywhere, anytime, I'd sacrifice the finest nuance for a laugh, the most elegant trope for a smile.
Now don't say you can't swear off drinking; it's easy. I've done it a thousand times.
If Hamilton were on Twitter, he would have been a worse oversharer than me.
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