David Sedaris quote: "Like anyone nostalgic for a time he didn't live through, I chose to weed out the little inconveniences: polio, say, or the thought of eating stewed squirrel. The world was simply grander back then, somehow more civilized, and nicer to look at."

If you read somebody's diary, you get what you deserve.
DAVID SEDARIS

I meet people at book signings. My record now, for signing, is ten and a half hours in one sitting.
DAVID SEDARIS

I love getting attention, just like a child loves it, and it's never worn off. So when people sa...
DAVID SEDARIS

If you read someone else's diary, you get what you deserve.
DAVID SEDARIS

Einstein wrote that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result....
DAVID SEDARIS

Hugh consoled me, saying, "Don't let it get to you. There are plenty of things you're good at."
DAVID SEDARIS

We were not a hugging people. In terms of emotional comfort it was our belief that no amount of phys...
DAVID SEDARIS

Like all of my friends, she's a lousy judge of character.
DAVID SEDARIS

Everyone looks retarded once you set your mind to it.
DAVID SEDARIS

Every gathering has its moment. As an adult, I distract myself by trying to identify it, dreading th...
DAVID SEDARIS

Kools and Newports were for black people and lower-class whites. Camels were for procrastinators, th...
DAVID SEDARIS

I've been keeping a diary for thirty-three years and write in it every morning. Most of it's...
DAVID SEDARIS

The trouble with aggressive nonsmokers is that they feel they are doing you a favor by not allowing ...
DAVID SEDARIS

The word phobic has its place when properly used, but lately it's been declawed by the pompous insis...
DAVID SEDARIS

In other parts of the country people tried to stay together for the sake of the children. In New Yor...
DAVID SEDARIS

People are often frightened of Parisians, but an American in Paris will find no harsher critic than ...
DAVID SEDARIS

Mr. Mancini had a singular talent for making me uncomfortable. He forced me to consider things I’d...
DAVID SEDARIS

Say what you will about the south, but in North Carolina a hot dog is free to swing anyway it wishes...
DAVID SEDARIS

For as long as I can remember, my father saved. He saves money, he saves disfigured sticks that rese...
DAVID SEDARIS

I was just struggling with my inner vachette and pondering the depths of my own inhumanity.
DAVID SEDARIS

but I have no mind for business and considered staying awake to be enough of an accomplishment.
DAVID SEDARIS

Potential boyfriends could not smoke Merit cigarettes, own or wear a pair of cowboy boots, or eat an...
DAVID SEDARIS

It's a common mistake for vacationing Americans to assume that everyone around them is French and th...
DAVID SEDARIS

I find it ridiculous to assign a gender to an inanimate object incapable of disrobing and making an ...
DAVID SEDARIS

If I could believe in myself, why not give other improbabilities the benefit of the doubt? I accepte...
DAVID SEDARIS

What's the trick to remembering that a sandwich is masculine? What qualities does it share with anyo...
DAVID SEDARIS

In order to get the things I want, it helps me to pretend I’m a figure in a daytime drama, a schem...
DAVID SEDARIS

Amy adored both the new look and the new person it allowed her to be. Following the photo shoot, she...
DAVID SEDARIS

The rabbit of Easter. He bring of the chocolate.
DAVID SEDARIS

The italian nanny was attempting to answer the teachers latest question when the moroccan student in...
DAVID SEDARIS

I find it ridiculous to assign a gender to an inanimate object incapable of disrobing and making an ...
DAVID SEDARIS

At the end of a miserable day, instead of grieving my virtual nothing, I can always look at my loade...
DAVID SEDARIS

On my fifth trip to France I limited myself to the words and phrases that people actually use. From ...
DAVID SEDARIS

When asked "What do we need to learn this for?" any high-school teacher can confidently answer that,...
DAVID SEDARIS

I hate you' she said to me one afternoon. 'I really, really hate you.' Call me sensitive, but I coul...
DAVID SEDARIS

Every day we're told that we live in the greatest country on earth. And it's always stated as an und...
DAVID SEDARIS

Certain motherfuckers think they can fuck with my shit, but you can't kill the Rooster. You might ca...
DAVID SEDARIS

When shit brings you down, just say 'fuck it', and eat yourself some motherfucking candy.
DAVID SEDARIS

If you aren't cute, you may as well be clever.
DAVID SEDARIS

People in trailers were canned and labeled much like the apple juice down at the plant, stamped with...
DAVID SEDARIS

There seemed to be some correlation between devotion to God and a misguided zeal for marshmallows.
DAVID SEDARIS

I'd tried to straighten him out, but there's only so much you can do for a person who thinks Auschwi...
DAVID SEDARIS

The humor section is the last place an author wants to be. They put your stuff next to collections o...
DAVID SEDARIS

The only bright spot in the entire evening was the presence of Kevin "Tubby" Matchwell, the eleven-y...
DAVID SEDARIS

My hands tend to be full enough dealing with people who hate me for who I am. Concentrate too hard o...
DAVID SEDARIS

Lovers of audio books learn to live with compromise.
DAVID SEDARIS

I guess my guilty pleasure would be listening to the British audio versions of the 'Harry Potter...
DAVID SEDARIS

It's odd the things that people remember. Parents will arrange a birthday party, certain it will...
DAVID SEDARIS

After a few months in my parents' basement, I took an apartment near the state university, where...
DAVID SEDARIS

To say that a humorist exaggerates to get big laughs, I don't see how that's big news.
DAVID SEDARIS

Hugh and I have been together for so long that in order to arouse extraordinary passion, we need to ...
DAVID SEDARIS

I love things made out of animals. It's just so funny to think of someone saying, 'I need a ...
DAVID SEDARIS

What other people call dark and despairing, I call funny.
DAVID SEDARIS

People ask me, 'Have you ever considered doing stand-up?' To me it would be less offensive i...
DAVID SEDARIS

No one writes dialect better than Flannery O'Connor. No one should even try.
DAVID SEDARIS

Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people a...
DAVID SEDARIS

After a few months in my parents' basement, I took an apartment near the state university, where I d...
DAVID SEDARIS

For the first twenty years of my life, I rocked myself to sleep. It was a harmless enough hobby, but...
DAVID SEDARIS

At first, writing for The New Yorker was very scary to me. I couldn't imagine anything that I would ...
DAVID SEDARIS

I haven't the slightest idea how to change people, but I still keep a long list of prospective candi...
DAVID SEDARIS

As a foreigner in London, I like that there are so many other foreigners.
DAVID SEDARIS

People ask if I miss it, but they don't understand that American culture is so ubiquitous that t...
DAVID SEDARIS

I love 'Glee.' I cry all the time when I watch 'Glee' because I don't know if it...
DAVID SEDARIS

But most good movies have a gun in them.
DAVID SEDARIS

They were nothing like the French people I had imagined. If anything, they were too kind, too genero...
DAVID SEDARIS

I've always been very upfront about the way I write, and I've always used the tools humorist...
DAVID SEDARIS

But I'm a humorist. I'm not a reporter, I never pretended to be a reporter.
DAVID SEDARIS

Maybe I'll learn a trade. I've considered taxidermy. I always thought it was a shame you couldn't do...
DAVID SEDARIS

I haven't got the slightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospecti...
DAVID SEDARIS

I cry all the time when I watch 'Glee' because I don't know if it's satire or melodr...
DAVID SEDARIS

I've become like one of those people I hate, the sort who go to the museum and, instead of looking a...
DAVID SEDARIS

If you stepped out of the shower and saw a leprechaun standing at the base of your toilet, would you...
DAVID SEDARIS

There’s a short circuit between my brain and my tongue, thus “Leave me the fuck alone” comes o...
DAVID SEDARIS

A zoo is a good place to make a spectacle of yourself, as the people around you have creepier, more ...
DAVID SEDARIS

Oh, for Christ's sake,' I hear. 'Can we please just try to have a good time?' This is like ordering ...
DAVID SEDARIS

You're the man now,' she said to me after my father died, 'you're the man.' Then she turned to Popey...
DAVID SEDARIS

On a busy day twenty-two thousand people come to visit Santa, and I was told that it is an elf's lot...
DAVID SEDARIS

It's just a penis, right? Probably no worse for you than smoking.
DAVID SEDARIS

States vote to take away my marriage rights, and even though I don't want to get married, it tends t...
DAVID SEDARIS

I just looked at the pattern of my life, decided I didn't like it, and changed.
DAVID SEDARIS

When a hurricane damaged my father's house, my brother rushed over with a gas grill, three coolers o...
DAVID SEDARIS

It is funny the things that run through your mind when you're sitting in your underpants in front of...
DAVID SEDARIS

Anyone who watches even the slightest amount of TV is familiar with the scene: An agent knocks on th...
DAVID SEDARIS

Seven beers followed by two Scotches and a thimble of marijuana and it's funny how sleep comes all o...
DAVID SEDARIS

I'm just a big liar.
DAVID SEDARIS

On Undecided Voters: "To put them in perspective, I think of being on an airplane. The f...
DAVID SEDARIS

It was my friend Frank, a writer in San Francisco, who finally set me straight. When asked about my ...
DAVID SEDARIS

I love things made out of animals. It's just so funny to think of someone saying, 'I need a letter o...
DAVID SEDARIS

In Paris the cashiers sit rather than stand. They run your goods over a scanner, tally up the price,...
DAVID SEDARIS

Real love amounts to withholding the truth, even when you're offered the perfect opportunity to hurt...
DAVID SEDARIS

I'm the most important person in the lives of almost everyone I know and a good number of the people...
DAVID SEDARIS

He took a sip of my father’s weak coffee and spit it back into the mug. "This shit’s like making...
DAVID SEDARIS

Scream at the mangled leather carcass lying at the foot of the stairs, and my parents would roar wit...
DAVID SEDARIS

Sometimes with 'The New Yorker,' they have grammar rules that just don't feel right in m...
DAVID SEDARIS

Like any normal fifth grader, I preferred my villains to be evil and stay that way, to act like Drac...
DAVID SEDARIS

Being locked up is one thing, but to have no concept of confinement, to be ignorant of its terms and...
DAVID SEDARIS

Anyone who watches even the slightest amount of TV is familiar with the scene: An agent knocks on th...
DAVID SEDARIS

Plenty of animals had pets, but few were more devoted than the mouse, who owned a baby corn snake—...
DAVID SEDARIS

I asked her, dreamily, if we had met, and when she told me that we had not, I gave her a little fing...
DAVID SEDARIS

Jeremy, Good luck on your first marriage.
DAVID SEDARIS

I haven't the slightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospective candi...
DAVID SEDARIS

If you're looking for sympathy you'll find it between shit and syphilis in the dictionary.
DAVID SEDARIS

… [I] recall thinking that the computer would never advance much further than this. Call me naïve...
DAVID SEDARIS

One thing about English-language bookstores in the age of Amazon is that it assumes that everybody h...
DAVID SEDARIS

When they're born outside, crows come and pluck their eyes out.
DAVID SEDARIS

Shit is the tofu of cursing and can be molded to whichever condition the speaker desires. Hot as shi...
DAVID SEDARIS

the lower bunks, both of us longing to be pinned. “You kids think you invented sex,” my mother w...
DAVID SEDARIS

Someone in our family had taken to wiping his or her ass on the bath towels. What made this exceptio...
DAVID SEDARIS

The whole notion of the nursing home was something dreamed up by people like my mother; American wom...
DAVID SEDARIS

The thing to remeber is that more than anything in this world, these colored people wish they were w...
DAVID SEDARIS

the beauty of an art school: as long as you can pay the tuition, they will never, even in the gentle...
DAVID SEDARIS

The thought of killing myself had slowed me down to five miles per hour. The thought of killing some...
DAVID SEDARIS

You have how many children in your family?" the teacher would ask. "I'm guessing you must be Catholi...
DAVID SEDARIS

What are you, tap dancing up there? You want a put on a show, do you? Well, the theater's closed for...
DAVID SEDARIS

You just take and take don´t you? Out there with your thumb in the air—not a care in the world, j...
DAVID SEDARIS

My hands tend to be full enough dealing with people who hate me for _who_ I am. Concentrate too hard...
DAVID SEDARIS

They're hungry for something they know nothing about, but we, we know all too well that the price of...
DAVID SEDARIS

Motherfucker, you haven't got the fucking balls God gave a goddamned church mouse. You crawled out o...
DAVID SEDARIS

Watching him was like opening the door to a siniging telegram; you know it's supposed to be entertai...
DAVID SEDARIS

He has a passport," my classmates would whisper. "Quick, let's run before he judges us!
DAVID SEDARIS

Right, I breast feed baby camels in my backyard just for the freaking fun of it. Just tell me where ...
DAVID SEDARIS

We give anonymously because the sackfuls of thank-you letters break our hearts with their clumsy han...
DAVID SEDARIS

If nothing else, life in the suburbs promised that you might go from day to day without finding shit...
DAVID SEDARIS

Motherfucker, you try that again and I'll come in there with a fucking coat hanger and give you some...
DAVID SEDARIS

I’d always been afraid of sick people, and so had my mother. It wasn’t that we feared catching t...
DAVID SEDARIS

As bad a dresser as I am, anything beats being judged by my character.
DAVID SEDARIS

The Greeks had invented democracy, built the Acropolis and called it a day.
DAVID SEDARIS

I've always had a way with the little people, making it a point to humor them without looking down m...
DAVID SEDARIS

I giggled out loud at his stupidity. If anyone knew how to make a bed, it was a faggot.
DAVID SEDARIS

What I really hated, of course, was my mind. There must have been an off switch somewhere, but I was...
DAVID SEDARIS

I was a smart-ass, born and raised. This had been my curse and would continue to be so.
DAVID SEDARIS

College is the best thing that can ever happen to you," my father used to say, and he was right, for...
DAVID SEDARIS

between the disfigurement and the muzzle, it's nearly impossible to catch what she's saying. Always,...
DAVID SEDARIS

Shit is the tofu of cursing.
DAVID SEDARIS

I haven't got the slightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospective c...
DAVID SEDARIS

Why refer to Lady Crack Pipe or Good Sir Dishrag when these things could never live up to all that t...
DAVID SEDARIS

When her muzzle grew more white than brown, the chipmunk forgot that she and the squirrel had had no...
DAVID SEDARIS

If I'm riding my bike I just replay the same scenarios over and over in my head, like I haven...
DAVID SEDARIS

The combination of ammonia and chloride can be lethal but I've discovered it can work miracles as lo...
DAVID SEDARIS

Sometimes the sins you haven't committed are all you have left to hold onto.
DAVID SEDARIS

That man tried to picka my frienda’s pocketoni!
DAVID SEDARIS

They were Jesuits," she told me. "That means they believe in God but not in terlet paper. You should...
DAVID SEDARIS

All of us take pride and pleasure in the fact that we are unique, but I'm afraid that when all is sa...
DAVID SEDARIS

He's as nutty as a vegan T-bone.
DAVID SEDARIS

A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneas...
DAVID SEDARIS

I hate computers. My hatred is entrenched, and I nourish it daily. I’m comfortable with it, and no...
DAVID SEDARIS

As a child I assumed that when I reached adulthood, I would have grown-up thoughts.
DAVID SEDARIS

Each one of us is left to choose our own quality of life and take pleasure where we find it with the...
DAVID SEDARIS

Speed eliminates all doubt. Am I smart enough? Will people like me? Do I really look all right in th...
DAVID SEDARIS

whenever I read a passage that moves me, I transcribe it in my diary, hoping my fingers might learn ...
DAVID SEDARIS

If I could believe in myself, why not give other improbabilities the benefit of the doubt?
DAVID SEDARIS

I love things made out of animals. It's just so funny to think of someone saying, "I need a letter o...
DAVID SEDARIS

I like the trail that the Internet created. For example, I was watching one of those Douglas Sirk mo...
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 just enjoy lying on the couch and reading a magazine.
DAVID SEDARIS

My sister Tiffany told me years ago, 'You can never write about me.' Then she called six mon...
DAVID SEDARIS

Do I exaggerate? Boy, do I, and I'd do it more if I could get away with it.
DAVID SEDARIS

I always think it's a good policy to like the people who like you.
DAVID SEDARIS

But I don't distinguish between being laughed with, and laughed at. I'll take either.
DAVID SEDARIS

The woman spoke with a heavy western North Carolina accent, which I used to discredit her authority....
DAVID SEDARIS

The landscape is best described as 'pedestrian hostile.' It's pointless to try to take a walk, so I ...
DAVID SEDARIS

Cover your glass in France or Germany --even worse, in England - and in the voice of someone who has...
DAVID SEDARIS

Don't leave a piece of jewelry at his house so you can go back and get it later; he may be with his ...
AMY SEDARIS

Sometimes losing a pet is more painful than losing a human because in the case of the pet, you were ...
AMY SEDARIS

I always liked my teachers, and I was in a lot of after-school projects. I was a Girl Scout until my...
AMY SEDARIS

My mom used to say that Greek Easter was later because then you get stuff cheaper.
AMY SEDARIS

I never really take shortcuts. I was always one of those people who, instead of cutting across someo...
AMY SEDARIS

You think in a different way when you don't have any money. The joy of poverty is that you use y...
AMY SEDARIS

I'm very domestic; I love cleaning. I love cooking. I like waiting on people. I just like to mak...
AMY SEDARIS

I'm not a good storyteller. I always think I'm going to get interrupted, or something's ...
AMY SEDARIS

People who shop in health food stores never look healthy.
AMY SEDARIS

I wouldn't call myself a shut-in. I have the ability to leave my home; I just choose not to. But...
AMY SEDARIS

I think it's still kind of weird to memorize a line, because you're supposed to 'be'...
AMY SEDARIS

More men than women like 'Strangers With Candy'. Pretty girls don't like the show. They ...
AMY SEDARIS

I like crafts that are made out of necessity because they're a little naive - you made it becaus...
AMY SEDARIS

I'm gonna do the whole bedroom in camel color - it's an old lady color.
AMY SEDARIS

If I put my mind to something, it happens. I do know that's not necessarily psychic. But I alway...
AMY SEDARIS

You know when you watch old movies, it's always the small parts you remember, the character acto...
AMY SEDARIS

Sometimes, to keep things exciting, I decorate my house as if I owned a child. I'll toss a tiny ...
AMY SEDARIS

But I always like to play ugly people who think they're pretty.
AMY SEDARIS

My father and I have a very good relationship. We always got along. But I always scold him.
AMY SEDARIS

When people tell me they are going to go scrapbooking, I say, 'Why don't you make it yoursel...
AMY SEDARIS

Books are challenging and inspirational to me.
AMY SEDARIS

I love costumes. My dream growing up was always to have my own costume and prop shop.
AMY SEDARIS

I love theatrical props: a cup filled with solid fake tea, say, or a collection of fake food, includ...
AMY SEDARIS

I like crafts that come out of poverty or necessity. There used to be hobby shops where you'd ge...
AMY SEDARIS

I like to decide the night before Thanksgiving that I'm gonna do it, and I'll see what riff ...
AMY SEDARIS

We're all used to seeing pretty people. I want to see real people.
AMY SEDARIS

My favorite things often have a story behind them and are usually handmade or discovered at a flea m...
AMY SEDARIS

I have always wanted a bunny and I'll always have a rabbit the rest of my life.
AMY SEDARIS

My characters always like themselves.
AMY SEDARIS

It's all about process to me - as long as it's fun to me, I don't care about the final product.
AMY SEDARIS

It was more of their quirky show. It was more like a cult show. The ratings weren't really that high...
AMY SEDARIS

I'm satisfied just thinking of the idea.
AMY SEDARIS

I choose to do unattractive people, because then I can pretend they think they're attractive.
AMY SEDARIS

I'm not a first-place person.
AMY SEDARIS

You know when you watch old movies, it's always the small parts you remember, the character actors w...
AMY SEDARIS

I always got along with all types of people - popular people as well as drug addicts.
AMY SEDARIS

It's driving me crazy! It's awful. I saw four last night during the Academy Awards. Four little baby...
AMY SEDARIS

I choose to do unattractive people, because then I can pretend they think they're attractive.
AMY SEDARIS

Like anyone nostalgic for a time he didn't live through, I chose to weed out the little inconveniences: polio, say, or the thought of eating stewed squirrel. The world was simply grander back then, somehow more civilized, and nicer to look at.

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David Sedaris

Like anyone nostalgic for a time he didn't live through, I chose to weed out the little inconveniences: polio, say, or the thought of eating stewed squirrel. The world was simply grander back then, somehow more civilized, and nicer to look at.

David Sedaris

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