Alexandra Petri

They will wrest 'dull words' from my cold dead hands.

— Alexandra Petri

Standup comedy was my weird hobby. I would drag my poor parents out to the only open mics that were in coffee…

— Alexandra Petri

You can be brilliant in some ways and despicable in others. You can be a clean, upright, moral individual in your private…

— Alexandra Petri

Almost nothing anyone told me about Harvard has been accurate.

— Alexandra Petri

Success is like food caught in your teeth: much more noticeable when it happens to other people. If it happens to you,…

— Alexandra Petri

I majored in extracurriculars, honestly. I joined the Harvard Stand Up Comedy Society, which is a ragtag band of misfits. I wrote…

— Alexandra Petri

Dull words are what make many bright sentences shine. They do not call attention to themselves.

— Alexandra Petri

Bills ought to be passed with deliberation by committees. Change should be achieved in a bipartisan manner. Incrementally, day by day, we…

— Alexandra Petri

Although no one explicitly wants a president who could have a reliable fall back career in stand-up comedy, everyone shudders at the…

— Alexandra Petri

George Washington didn't have to make us laugh; he just had to establish precedents and avoid chopping down more cherry trees than…

— Alexandra Petri

At Harvard, people like to impart the idea that you are a mover and shaker.

— Alexandra Petri

It's easier to find the joke in something when you think, 'This - this is ridiculous.'

— Alexandra Petri

The desire for attention has become a primal need along the lines of food, water, and clothing.

— Alexandra Petri

The biggest way to be productive is if you're procrastinating on another more important project.

— Alexandra Petri

As long as cantankerous old people have existed, they have complained that kids nowadays don't seem to know anything.

— Alexandra Petri

Worst case scenario, nothing I do has any value or purpose, but if I can make someone laugh, I'm at least as…

— Alexandra Petri

My first summer in college, I interned for Arena Stage in D.C. and taught a disastrous class on standup comedy to middle…

— Alexandra Petri

Pleasure reading has long been an American ideal - generations of schoolchildren have headed home for the summer toting recreational reading lists.…

— Alexandra Petri

When police are shutting down cameras, it is a sign that they know the truth is not going to be kind to…

— Alexandra Petri

Journalists run many risks. It comes with the profession.

— Alexandra Petri

Stereotyped as convention-going, pocket-protector-wearing, chess-playing, infrequently-showering types, nerds are one of our society's most ridiculed groups. And, for a university with an…

— Alexandra Petri

At Harvard, where students tend to respond to real-world celebrities with the vague sense that they could do a better job themselves,…

— Alexandra Petri

The problem with technology, as with fashion, is that it's impossible to be 'in' forever.

— Alexandra Petri

YouTube is covered in comments that would be better expressed - and better spelled - via a simple thumbs-up or down.

— Alexandra Petri

Ferguson shows the power of social media. This could have not been a story. Or it could have just been a local…

— Alexandra Petri