About Dr. Mardy

Dr. Mardy Grothe is a psychologist who lived and practiced in New England for more than thirty years before moving to North Carolina in 2005. Originally trained as an individual therapist and marriage counselor, he expanded his practice to the business arena in the early 1980s. He was instrumental in establishing an important sub-specialty in the field of management consulting — helping business owners, business partners, and top executives resolve personal and interpersonal problems. In 1984, a cover story in Inc. magazine (titled "Sparring Partners") called him a pioneer in the new and emerging field of "business therapy."

Dr. Mardy Grothe

In addition to his clinical practice and consulting work, Grothe has given more than five hundred seminars on the topic of “Effective Leadership" to groups associated with "Vistage," an international network of CEOs (formerly known as TEC, for "The Executive Committee"). He has also been a popular speaker at the annual meetings of trade and professional associations.

Grothe is the author of eight books in the "word and language” arena:

Never Let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You: Chiasmus and a World of Quotations That Mean What They Say and Say What They Mean (Viking, 1999)

Oxymoronica: Paradoxical Wit & Wisdom From History's Greatest Wordsmiths (HarperCollins, 2004)

Viva la Repartee: Clever Comebacks & Witty Retorts From History's Great Wits & Wordsmiths (HarperCollins, 2005)

I Never Metaphor I Didn't Like: A Comprehensive Compilation of History's Greatest Analogies, Metaphors, and Similes (HarperCollins, 2008)

Ifferisms: An Anthology of Aphorisms that Begin With the Word "If" (HarperCollins, 2009)

Neverisms: A Quotation Lover's Guide to Things You Should Never Do, Never Say, or Never Forget (HarperCollins, 2011)

Metaphors Be With You: An A to Z Dictionary of History's Greatest Metaphorical Quotations (HarperCollins, 2016).

Deconstructing Trump: The Trump Phenomenon Through the Lens of Quotation History (Quoterie Press, 2019).

All of Grothe's books reflect his longstanding interest in words, language, and quotations. As some people collect coins or stamps or butterflies, he is a passionate quotation collector, with close to a quarter of a million quotations in his personal collection.

Grothe is also the creator of Dr. Mardy's Dictionary of Metaphorical Quotations (DMDMQ), the world's largest online database of metaphorical quotations.

Born and raised in North Dakota, Grothe graduated from the University of North Dakota in 1964. In the mid-1960s he worked as Director of Student Activities at Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin. In 1974, he received a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University. He and his wife, Katherine Robinson, currently live in Southern Pines, North Carolina.