David Sedaris Quotes

“The rabbit of Easter. He bring of the chocolate.”

“He looked as though his life had not only passed him by but paused along the way to spit in his face.”

Source: Me Talk Pretty One Day

“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.”

“Often I'd take out my magnifying glass and stare into the chaos that was her face.”

“It is funny the things that run through your mind when you're sitting in your underpants in front of a pair of strangers.”

“What's the trick to remembering that a sandwich is masculine? What qualities does it share with anyone in possession of a penis? I'll tell myself that a sandwich is masculine because if left alone for a week or two, it will eventually grow a beard.”

Source: When You Are Engulfed in Flames

“Oh, for Christ's sake,' I hear. 'Can we please just try to have a good time?' This is like ordering someone to find you attractive, and it doesn't work. I've tried it.”

Source: Me Talk Pretty One Day

“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.”

Source: When You Are Engulfed in Flames

“You can't brace yourself for famine if you've never known hunger.”

Source: When You Are Engulfed in Flames

“I find it ridiculous to assign a gender to an inanimate object incapable of disrobing and making an occasional fool of itself.”

“whenever I read a passage that moves me, I transcribe it in my diary, hoping my fingers might learn what excellence feels like.”

Source: Me Talk Pretty One Day

“I won't put in a load of laundry, because the machine is too loud and would drown out other, more significant noises - namely, the shuffling footsteps of the living dead.”

David Sedaris book Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

Source: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

“College is the best thing that can ever happen to you," my father used to say, and he was right, for it was there that I discovered drugs, drinking, and smoking..”

David Sedaris Naked

Source: Naked

“Their house had real hard-cover books in it, and you often saw them lying open on the sofa, the words still warm from being read.”

David Sedaris book Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls

Variant: 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.
Source: Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls

“And when Hugh would grow progressively Gandhi on me, I'd remind him that these were pests---disease carriers who feasted upon the dead and then came indoors to dance upon our silverware.”

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

Source: When You Are Engulfed in Flames

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

Source: Me Talk Pretty One Day

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

Source: Me Talk Pretty One Day

“At first, writing for The New Yorker was very scary to me. I couldn't imagine anything that I would write in that typeface.”

Source: Me Talk Pretty One Day

“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.”

“In the beginning, I was put off by the harshness of German. Someone would order a piece of cake, and it sounded as if it were an actual order, like, "Cut the cake and lie facedown in that ditch between the cobbler and the little girl."”

Source: Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)

David Sedaris book Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls

I'm guessing this comes from having watched too many Second World War movies.

Essay, "Easy, tiger". p.80
Source: Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls (2013)

“People are often frightened of Parisians, but an American in Paris will find no harsher critic than another American.”

“This was the consequence of seeing too much and understanding the horrible truth: No one is safe. The world is not manageable.”

Source: Me Talk Pretty One Day

“I needed to temper (my dad's) enthusiasm a bit (about attending Princeton), and so I announced that I would be majoring in patricide… My mom was actually jealous.”

Source: When You Are Engulfed in Flames

“Given enough time, I guess anything can look good. All it has to do is survive.”

Source: When You Are Engulfed in Flames