“I go to the movies at least five times a week, and after a while everything becomes a blur to me.”
― 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
“I love ‘Glee.’ I cry all the time when I watch ‘Glee’ because I don’t know if it’s satire or melodrama and that makes me feel like the writing is aware of itself, and that makes it okay to cry.”
― David Sedaris
“I’ve been keeping a diary for thirty-three years and write in it every morning. Most of it’s just whining, but every so often there’ll be something I can use later: a joke, a description, a quote. It’s an invaluable aid when it comes to winning arguments. ‘That’s not what you said on February 3, 1996,’ I’ll say to someone.”
― David Sedaris
“I meet people at book signings. My record now, for signing, is ten and a half hours in one sitting.”
― David Sedaris
“The only real advice you can give anyone is to keep writing.”
― David Sedaris
“If I’m riding my bike I just replay the same scenarios over and over in my head, like I haven’t had a new mental adventure since high school. So that’s what I like about books on tape, so my mind can’t wander anywhere.”
― 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
“Actually I liked that ‘Let the Right One In,’ that Swedish vampire movie.”
― David Sedaris
“My family isn’t really all that different from anyone else’s. Well, maybe they’re a bit more entertaining.”
― David Sedaris
“I always think it’s a good policy to like the people who like you.”
― David Sedaris
“If you read somebody’s diary, you get what you deserve.”
― David Sedaris
“I don’t like being left to my own thoughts.”
― David Sedaris
“To say that a humorist exaggerates to get big laughs, I don’t see how that’s big news.”
― David Sedaris
“I’m not a reporter but the ‘New Yorker’ treats everyone like a reporter.”
― David Sedaris
“I like nonfiction books about people with wretched lives.”
― David Sedaris
“I guess my guilty pleasure would be listening to the British audio versions of the ‘Harry Potter’ books.”
― David Sedaris
“When I look at a lot of older stuff that I’ve written, I think one sign of amateur humor writing is when you see people trying too hard.”
― David Sedaris
“Also, I used to think that one day I might get someone to iron my shirts, but the truth is I really like doing them myself.”
― David Sedaris
“I’ve always been very upfront about the way I write, and I’ve always used the tools humorists use, such as exaggeration.”
― David Sedaris
“They were nothing like the French people I had imagined. If anything, they were too kind, too generous and too knowledgable in the fields of plumbing and electricity.”
― David Sedaris
“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 love things made out of animals. It’s just so funny to think of someone saying, ‘I need a letter opener. I guess I’ll have to kill a deer.”
― David Sedaris
“People ask me, ‘Have you ever considered doing stand-up?’ To me it would be less offensive if someone asked me, ‘Have you ever considered dental implants?’”
― David Sedaris
“I like to reserve the right to write about whatever I like.”
― David Sedaris
“The humor section is the last place an author wants to be. They put your stuff next to collections of Cathy cartoons.”
― David Sedaris
“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 went from having 50 listeners to 50 million listeners.”
― David Sedaris
“My sister Tiffany told me years ago, ‘You can never write about me.’ Then she called six months ago and said she wanted to be in a story. She was worried people thought I didn’t like her.”
― David Sedaris
“I’ve been keeping diaries for 27 years.”
― David Sedaris
“People ask if I miss it, but they don’t understand that American culture is so ubiquitous that there’s nothing to miss. I don’t see myself moving back. It’s not that I hate the United States. I just always thought it would be a shame not to live in a foreign country.”
― David Sedaris
“No one writes dialect better than Flannery O’Connor. No one should even try.”
― David Sedaris
“I like books on tape, and will listen to just about anything.”
― David Sedaris
“I started writing when I was twenty, and my first book came out seventeen years later.”
― 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
“There are lots of things that happen to me that I don’t write about.”
― David Sedaris
“Sometimes I say to myself, ‘Oh, I wish I could win a Tony Award’, although I’m not that bothered.”
― David Sedaris
“I love getting attention, just like a child loves it, and it’s never worn off. So when people say, oh the book signings go on, why would I shoo away someone who’s giving me attention? What part of standing in line for 10 hours to say how much they love you is bad to you?”
― 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’ve never gone on Facebook and am not sure I understand it. The same goes for Twitter. I have someone sending tweets and pretending to be me, but I don’t know why.”
― David Sedaris
“As a foreigner in London, I like that there are so many other foreigners.”
― David Sedaris
“I just enjoy lying on the couch and reading a magazine.”
― David Sedaris
“I don’t have email.”
― David Sedaris
“Lovers of audio books learn to live with compromise.”
― David Sedaris
“I think it’s important to take chances.”
― David Sedaris
“I love ‘Glee.’”
― David Sedaris
“I cry all the time when I watch ‘Glee’ because I don’t know if it’s satire or melodrama and that makes me feel like the writing is aware of itself, and that makes it OK to cry.”
― David Sedaris
“Do I exaggerate? Boy, do I, and I’d do it more if I could get away with it.”
― David Sedaris
“But most good movies have a gun in them.”
― David Sedaris
“I always knew I wanted it to be illustrated.”
― David Sedaris
“Sometimes with ‘The New Yorker,’ they have grammar rules that just don’t feel right in my mouth.”
― David Sedaris
“I don’t think my life is more interesting than anybody else’s.”
― David Sedaris
“Because I’ve always been a fairly nervous person.”
― David Sedaris
“But I’m a humorist. I’m not a reporter, I never pretended to be a reporter.”
― David Sedaris
“When you read comic material and people aren’t laughing how do you know they’re listening.”
― David Sedaris
“What other people call dark and despairing, I call funny.”
― David Sedaris
“I tend to show everything I do to my family, to check they won’t be offended.”
― David Sedaris
“I sometimes read books on my iPad.”
― David Sedaris
“I like listening to books as well, as that way you can iron at the same time.”
― David Sedaris
“But I don’t distinguish between being laughed with, and laughed at. I’ll take either.”
― David Sedaris
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