David Sedaris quotes
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Real love amounts to withholding the truth, even when you're offered the perfect opportunity to hurt someone's feelings
-- David Sedaris -
Usually, if I think something is really funny, it doesn't get any reaction whatsoever.
-- David Sedaris -
I started writing when I was twenty, and my first book came out seventeen years later.
-- David Sedaris -
I don't like to read anything on the radio for the very first time, because I don't have any notion of a reaction. When I read it out loud, then I get an idea of that, and more of an idea of how to read.
-- David Sedaris -
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Like all of my friends, she's a lousy judge of character.
-- David Sedaris -
Most people, or at least most of the people that I've come into contact with, would like to be written about.
-- David Sedaris -
If you are any kind of an artist, then validation . . . can be a result, but you're going to do the work anyway.
-- David Sedaris -
What's strange is, the people who want to be in the position are never asked to be in the position. Like, if you don't want to do something, then people really want you to do it. And the more you say, "No, really, I'm sorry, it's really not for me," the more they want to convince you that it is, in fact, for you, and that you'd be absolutely perfect.
-- David Sedaris -
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Everyone looks retarded once you set your mind to it.
-- David Sedaris -
Most movies, I forget about them while I'm watching them. I go every single day. But I've never thought about participating in any way. It's like being at home all day. It was never a goal to me.
-- David Sedaris -
States vote to take away my marriage rights, and even though I don't want to get married, it tends to hurt my feelings. I guess what bugs me is that it was put to a vote in the first place. If you don't want to marry a homosexual, then don't. But what gives you the right to weigh in on your neighbor's options? It's like voting whether or not redheads should be allowed to celebrate Christmas.
-- David Sedaris -
The difference between the first time I read something and the tenth time I read something is generally pretty profound. Even if the script is the same, just the way that I read it is different.
-- David Sedaris -
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I just looked at the pattern of my life, decided I didn't like it, and changed.
-- David Sedaris -
I don't really do very well when I'm sent somewhere. A lot of magazines want to send you somewhere to do something. They want you to stow away on a ship, or something like that.
-- David Sedaris -
Some friendships are formed by a commonality of interests and ideas: you both love judo or camping or making your own sausage. Other friendships are forged in alliance against a common enemy.
-- David Sedaris -
You meet people who say, "Oh, I'd like to do such-and-such, but I don't have the time." But it always seemed to me like you make the time. And if you have a wife or a job, if you have kids or whatever, you find a way. If you really want to do it, you make the time.
-- David Sedaris -
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At the end of a miserable day, instead of grieving my virtual nothing, I can always look at my loaded wastepaper basket and tell myself that if I failed, at least I took a few trees down with me.
-- David Sedaris -
One thing I like about the United States, and I kind of miss about the United States, is there's an election coming up here in England, but no one's going to have a sign in front of their house. Nobody's going to wear buttons. And in France, same thing. In America I like that people have signs and buttons and bumper stickers. Sometimes you'll smile at someone from a distance, then you'll get up close and you'll see their pin, and you're like, "Oh my god. I wasted a smile on you?"
-- David Sedaris -
.. but all of a sudden they’re poets, right, like that’s all it takes — being in love.
-- David Sedaris -
I don't worry about being exposed. When I'm writing about myself I think about myself as a character. There is a ton of stuff going on in my life that I don't write about. If I need to write that stuff down, I write about myself in my diary.
-- David Sedaris -
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If you read someone else's diary, you get what you deserve.
-- David Sedaris -
I think it's good to have the alone time. Well, I kind of have to, because I have to be alone in order to work, so I have alone time. And then I go on tour and I have being-around-people time.
-- David Sedaris -
I sometimes read books on my iPad.
-- David Sedaris -
I've been keeping diaries for 27 years.
-- David Sedaris -
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Weird doors open. People fall into things.
-- David Sedaris -
I started writing one afternoon when I was twenty, and ever since then I have written every day. At first I had to force myself. Then it became part of my identity, and I did it without thinking.
-- David Sedaris -
I always say to young people, "Get the hell out of the United States." Especially if you're young, like if you're 21 or something. Let's say you don't speak any Italian. You're 21. Everyone's going to want to sleep with you and be nice to you. And the best way to learn a language is to sleep with someone from that country.
-- David Sedaris -
Comfort has its place, but it seems rude to visit another country dressed as if you’ve come to mow its lawns.
-- David Sedaris -
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The interesting thing about gay people is that you can't really put on a wedding without them. They're the ones who make your dress, and do the flowers and the catering. They've toiled in the wedding industry all these years but were never allowed to do it themselves.
-- David Sedaris -
The only real advice you can give anyone is to keep writing.
-- David Sedaris -
In my dream world gay people in America would get the right to marry, and not a one of them would use that right.
-- David Sedaris -
A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit.
-- David Sedaris -
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The good thing about being gay was always that you didn't have a wedding. People would say, "He's gay, but at least he didn't make us go to his wedding. He didn't make us fly across the country. He didn't make us choose between the fish and the beef."
-- David Sedaris -
The rabbit of Easter. He bring of the chocolate.
-- David Sedaris -
If you stepped out of the shower and saw a leprechaun standing at the base of your toilet, would you scream, or would you innately understand that he meant you no harm?
-- David Sedaris -
As a child I assumed that when I reached adulthood, I would have grown-up thoughts.
-- David Sedaris -
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It make one's mouth hurt to speak with such forced merriment.
-- David Sedaris -
If you aren't cute, you may as well be clever.
-- David Sedaris -
Boys who spent their weekends making banana nut muffins did not, as a rule, excel in the art of hand-to-hand combat.
-- David Sedaris -
This left me alone to solve the coffee problem - a sort of catch-22, as in order to think straight I need caffeine, and in order to make that happen I need to think straight.
-- David Sedaris -
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I find it ridiculous to assign a gender to an inanimate object incapable of disrobing and making an occasional fool of itself.
-- David Sedaris -
Every day we're told that we live in the greatest country on earth. And it's always stated as an undeniable fact: Leos are born between July 23 and August 22, fitted queen-size sheets measure sixty by eighty inches, and America is the greatest country on earth. Having grown up with this in our ears, it's startling to realize that other countries have nationalistic slogans of their own, none of which are 'We're number two!
-- David Sedaris -
The woman in charge of costuming assigned us our outfits and gave us a lecture on keeping things clean. She held up a calendar and said, "Ladies, you know what this is. Use it. I have scraped enough blood out from the crotches of elf knickers to last me the rest of my life. And don't tell me, 'I don't wear underpants, I'm a dancer.' You're not a dancer. If you were a real dancer you wouldn't be here. You're an elf and you're going to wear panties like an elf.
-- David Sedaris -
Their house had real hardcover books in it, and you often saw them lying open on the sofa, the words still warm from being read.
-- David Sedaris -
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When asked "What do we need to learn this for?" any high-school teacher can confidently answer that, regardless of the subject, the knowledge will come in handy once the student hits middle age and starts working crossword puzzles in order to stave off the terrible loneliness.
-- David Sedaris -
Standing in a two-hour line makes people worry that they're not living in a democratic nation. People stand in line for two houres and they go over the edge.
-- David Sedaris -
We can't profess love without talking through hand puppets.
-- David Sedaris -
After a few months in my parents' basement, I took an apartment near the state university, where I discovered both crystal methamphetamine and conceptual art. Either one of these things are dangerous, but in combination they have the potential to destroy entire civilizations.
-- David Sedaris -
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I haven't got the slightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out.
-- David Sedaris -
I just enjoy lying on the couch and reading a magazine.
-- David Sedaris -
It's odd the things that people remember. Parents will arrange a birthday party, certain it will stick in your mind forever. You'll have a nice time, then two years later you'll be like, 'There was a pony there? Really? And a clown with one leg?'
-- David Sedaris -
My hands tend to be full enough dealing with people who hate me for who I am. Concentrate too hard on the millions of people who hate you for what you are and you're likely to turn into one of those unkempt, sloppy dressers who sag beneath the weight of the two hundred political buttons they wear pinned to their coats and knapsacks.
-- David Sedaris -
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We were not a hugging people. In terms of emotional comfort it was our belief that no amount of physical contact could match the healing powers of a well made cocktail.
-- David Sedaris -
I see you that have a little swimming mouse
-- David Sedaris -
Up close the city constitutes an oppressive series of staircases, but from a distance it inspires fantasies of wealth and power so profound that even our communists are temporarily rendered speechless.
-- David Sedaris -
Cover your glass in France or Germany --even worse, in England - and in the voice of someone who has personally affronted, your host will ask why you're not drinking. 'Oh, I just don't feel like it this morning.' 'Why not?' 'I guess I'm not in the mood?' 'Well, this'll put you in the mood. Here. Drink up.' 'No, really, I'm OK.' 'Just taste it.' 'Actually, I'm sort of...well, I sort of have a problem with it.' 'Then how about half a glass?
-- David Sedaris -
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Paul Rudnick is a champion of truth (and love and great wicked humor) whom we ignore at our peril.
-- David Sedaris -
Right, I breast feed baby camels in my backyard just for the freaking fun of it. Just tell me where you live, Pinocchio, and save the baloney for lunch.
-- David Sedaris -
I've often lost faith in myself, I've never lost it in my family
-- David Sedaris -
Being locked up is one thing, but to have no concept of confinement, to be ignorant of its terms and never understand that struggle is useless - that's what hell must be like.
-- David Sedaris -
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My sister's the type who religiously watches the fear segments of her local Eyewitness News broadcasts, retaining nothing but the headline...Everything is dangerous all of the time, and if it's not yet been pulled off the shelves, then it's certainly under investigation -- so there.
-- David Sedaris -
This was the consequence of seeing too much and understanding the horrible truth: No one is safe. The world is not manageable.
-- David Sedaris -
I'd always thought that I understood this, but lately I realize that what I call "understanding" is basically just fantasizing.
-- David Sedaris -
I spent months searching for some secret code before I realized that common sense has nothing to do with it. Hysteria, psychosis, torture, depression: I was told that if something is unpleasant it's probably feminine. This encouraged me, but the theory was blown by such masculine nouns as murder, toothache, and rollerblade. I have no problem learning the words themselves, it's the sexes that trip me up and refuse to stick.
-- David Sedaris -
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The walking tour guides one through the city's various landmarks, reciting bits of information the listener might find enlightening. I learned, for example, that in the late 1500s my little neighborhood square was a popular spot for burning people alive. Now lined with a row of small shops, the tradition continues, though in a figurative rather than literal sense.
-- David Sedaris -
The thought of killing myself had slowed me down to five miles per hour. The thought of killing someone else stopped me completely.
-- David Sedaris -
It hardly seemed fair, because, unlike a horse or a Seeing Eye dog, the whole glory of being a bird is that nobody would ever put you to work.
-- David Sedaris -
His embarassment would have pleased me, but once he recovered, there would be that awkward period that sometimes culminates in a handshake. I didn't want to touch these people's hands or see things from their point of view, I just wanted to continue hating them. So I kept my mouth shut and stared off into space.
-- David Sedaris -
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The landscape is best described as 'pedestrian hostile.' It's pointless to try to take a walk, so I generally just stay in the room and think about shooting myself in the head.
-- David Sedaris -
Like any normal fifth grader, I preferred my villains to be evil and stay that way, to act like Dracula rather than Frankenstein's monster, who ruined everything by handing that peasant girl a flower. He sort of made up for it by drowning her a few minutes later, but, still, you couldn't look at him the same way again.
-- David Sedaris -
I can't seem to fathom that the things important to me are not important to other people as well, and so I come off sounding like a missionary, someone whose job it is to convert rather than listen.
-- David Sedaris -
The trouble with aggressive nonsmokers is that they feel they are doing you a favor by not allowing you to smoke. They seem to think that one day you'll look back and thank them for those precious fifteen seconds they just added to your life. What they don't understand is that those are just fifteen more seconds you can spend hating their guts and plotting revenge.
-- David Sedaris -
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The combination of ammonia and chloride can be lethal but I've discovered it can work miracles as long as you keep telling yourself, "I want to love, I want to live...
-- David Sedaris -
Scream at the mangled leather carcass lying at the foot of the stairs, and my parents would roar with laughter. "That's what you get for leaving your wallet on the kitchen table.
-- David Sedaris -
Sometimes you read something and it's just -- it doesn't invite a reader....Sometimes you read something and it's not saying, 'oh come in, come in have a seat. I'm going to tell you what happened.' Perhaps my writing comes off as conversational...and that takes effort.
-- David Sedaris -
A zoo is a good place to make a spectacle of yourself, as the people around you have creepier, more photogenic things to look at.
-- David Sedaris -
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but I have no mind for business and considered staying awake to be enough of an accomplishment.
-- David Sedaris -
I'm not afraid to write about madness. I always figure that whatever most embarrasses you is something that everyone can relate to, really...because we're just not that different. So if you think, 'Oh my god, this is so embarrassing. I can't possibly talk about that,' and you write about it, the audience is gonna be like, 'that happened to me!
-- David Sedaris -
I think if you write humor, then people don't - you know - they don't give you that much credit. They tend to think you just dictate your stories into a tape recorder. And I'm not necessarily insulted by that, because I think that just means that it looks easy.
-- David Sedaris -
I was just struggling with my inner vachette and pondering the depths of my own inhumanity.
-- David Sedaris -
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Hugh consoled me, saying, "Don't let it get to you. There are plenty of things you're good at." When asked for some examples, he listed vacuuming and naming stuffed animals. He says he can probably come up with a few more, but he'll need some time to think.
-- David Sedaris -
He's as nutty as a vegan T-bone.
-- David Sedaris -
In other parts of the country people tried to stay together for the sake of the children. In New York they tried to work things out for the sake of the apartment.
-- David Sedaris -
She's afraid to tell me anything important, knowing I'll only turn around and write about it. In my mind, I'm like a friendly junkman, building things from the little pieces of scrap I find here and there, but my family's started to see things differently. Their personal lives are the so-called pieces of scrap I so casually pick up, and they're sick of it. More and more often their stories begin with the line "You have to swear you'll never repeat this." I always promise, but it's generally understood that my word means nothing.
-- David Sedaris -
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The fake slap invariably makes contact, adding the elements of shock and betrayal to what had previously been plain old-fashioned fear.
-- David Sedaris -
Listen, you might want to pack a few of your things together before going to bed. The former bishop of Turkey will be coming tonight along with six to eight black men. They might put some candy in your shoes, they might stuff you into a sack and take you to Spain, or they might just pretend to kick you. We don't know for sure, but we want you to be prepared." This was the reward for living in the Netherlands. As a child you get to hear this story, and as an adult you get to turn around and repeat it.
-- David Sedaris -
Lovers of audio books learn to live with compromise.
-- David Sedaris -
Art isn't about following the rules. It's about breaking them.
-- David Sedaris -
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I always used to reach for the cigarette when the phone rang, and I figured nobody would ever call me in Tokyo. The time difference is so profound it's, like, already September in Tokyo, and I figured nobody would be able to work it out.
-- David Sedaris -
Traveling across the United States, it's easy to see why Americans are often thought of as stupid. At the San Diego Zoo, right near the primate habitats, there's a display featuring half a dozen life-size gorillas made out of bronze. Posted nearby is a sign reading CAUTION: GORILLA STATUES MAY BE HOT. Everywhere you turn, the obvious is being stated. CANNON MAY BE LOUD. MOVING SIDEWALK IS ABOUT TO END. To people who don't run around suing one another, such signs suggest a crippling lack of intelligence.
-- David Sedaris -
I go to the movies at least five times a week, and after a while everything becomes a blur to me.
-- David Sedaris -
I felt uncomfortable calling myself a writer until I started with 'The New Yorker,' and then I was like, 'Okay, now you can call yourself that.
-- David Sedaris -
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I just think that the people who say: 'That's not true' when someone tells a story at dinner are the people who didn't get any laughs when they told their story.
-- David Sedaris -
I like to reserve the right to write about whatever I like.
-- David Sedaris -
I met a young woman the other day, and she said, what advice would you have for a writer, and I said it would be to work every day... Your job is to write. The rest of it will take care of itself. But, generally, it seems ... you know how that is, you meet people and they have a talent for self-promotion. Those are the pushy people. And you know their writing's not going to be any good, because that's not their talent.
-- David Sedaris -
God was someone I wound up turning over and over in my mind each night... Was He punishing me with this meal or was He rewarding me? Did He actively watch me or take me for granted like a fish you don't notice until it's floating on the surface of the tank?
-- David Sedaris -
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Every so often my life will feel like a story. It doesn't have to be a big thing; in fact, most often, it's just the opposite.
-- David Sedaris -
My conscience is crosswired with my sweat glands, but there's a short in the system and I break out over things I didn't do, which only makes me look more suspect.
-- David Sedaris -
I tend to write things seven times before I show them to my editor. I write them seven times, then I take them on tour, read them like a dozen times on tour, then go back to the room and rewrite, read and rewrite... I would never show him a first draft, because then he's really going to be sick of it by the twelfth draft.
-- David Sedaris -
When I taught, a lot of my students weren't big readers, so they would write something and I realized that they thought it belonged in a book. Like, they didn't know what the inside of a book looked like, you know what I mean?
-- David Sedaris -
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