David Sedaris Quotes (108 quotes, page 2)

On stereotypes of bowtie wearers, [Sedaris, David, David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Little, Brown and Company, Buddy, Can You Spare a Tie?, 2008, 0316143472]
When You Are Engulfed in Flames (2008)

“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 the these things are dangerous, but in combination they have the potential to destroy entire civilizations.”

David Sedaris book Me Talk Pretty One Day

Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)

“If finding an apartment is like falling in love, buying one is like proposing on your first date and agreeing not to see each other until the wedding.”

David Sedaris book Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (2004)

“on genders of nouns: Why refer to Lady Crack Pipe or Good Sir Dishrag when these things could never live up to all that their sex implied?”

David Sedaris book Me Talk Pretty One Day

Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)

“For the first twenty years of my life I rocked myself to sleep. It was a harmless enough hobby, but eventually I had to give it up. Throughout the next twenty-two years I lay still and discovered that after a few minutes I could drop off with no problem. Follow seven beers with a couple of scotches and a thimble of good marijuana, and it's funny how sleep just sort of comes on its own. Often I never even make it to bed. I'd squat down to pet the cat and wake up on the floor eight hours later, having lost a perfectly good excuse to change my clothes. I'm now told that this is not called "going to sleep" but rather "passing out," a phrase that carries a distinct hint of judgment.”

David Sedaris book Me Talk Pretty One Day

Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)

“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 Naked

Naked (1997)

“If cooking is an art, I think we're in our Dada phase.”

David Sedaris book Me Talk Pretty One Day

Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)

“Because I'm both a glutton and a masochist, my standard complaint, "That was so bad", is always followed by "And there was so little of it!"”

David Sedaris book Me Talk Pretty One Day

Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)

“The word phobic has its place when properly used, but lately it's been declawed by the pompous insistence that most animosity is based upon fear rather than loathing. No credit is given for distinguishing between these two very different emotions.”

David Sedaris book Me Talk Pretty One Day

Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)

“Friends always say, "How can you eat those? I read in the paper that they're made from hog's lips."
"And…?"
"And hearts and eyelids."”

David Sedaris book Me Talk Pretty One Day

Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)

“"You kids think you invented sex," my mother was fond of saying. But hadn't we? With no instruction manual or federally enforced training period, didn't we all come away feeling we'd discovered something unspeakably modern? What produced in others a feeling of exhilaration left Jason and me with a mortifying feeling of guilt. We fled the room as if, in our fumblings, we had uncapped some virus we still might escape if we ran fast enough. Had one of the counselors not caught me scaling the fence, I felt certain I could have made it back to Raleigh by morning, skittering across the surface of the ocean like one of those lizards often featured on television wildlife programs.”

David Sedaris Naked

Essay: "I like guys". (p.106-107) [Page numbers per the 2006 Abacus paperback edition.]
Naked (1997)

“They were nothing like the French people I had imagined. If anything, they were too kind, too generous and too knowledgeable in the fields of plumbing and electricity.”

David Sedaris book Me Talk Pretty One Day

Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)

“People had their places, and to not understand that, to act in violation of it, demoted you from a nature nut to something even lower, a complete untouchable, basically.”

David Sedaris book Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls

Essay, "Loggerheads". p.68
Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls (2013)

“Something has changed, and now, when I look at my students, I see only people who are going to eat up my time.”

David Sedaris

17.01.1989 - p.201
Theft by Finding: Diaries, Volume 1 (1977-2002) (2017)

“It's fun to see where people live.”

David Sedaris

20.01.1979 - p.29
Theft by Finding: Diaries, Volume 1 (1977-2002) (2017)

“I Photo Elfed all day for a variety of Santas and it struck me that many of the parents don't allow their children to speak at all. A child sits upon Santa's lap and the parents say, 'All right now, Amber, tell Santa what you want. Tell him you want a Baby Alive and My Pretty Ballerina and that winter coat you saw in the catalog.'
The parents name the gifts they have already bought. They don't want to hear the word 'pony' or 'television set,' so they talk through the entire visit, placing words in the child's mouth. When the child hops off the lap, the parents address their children, each and every time, with, 'What do you say to Santa?'
The child says, 'Thank you, Santa.'”

David Sedaris book Barrel Fever

It is sad because you would like to believe that everyone is unique and then they disappoint you every time by being exactly the same, asking for the same things, reciting the exact same lines as though they have been handed a script.
All of us take pride and pleasure in the fact that we are unique, but I'm afraid that when all is said and done the police are right: it all comes down to the fingerprints.
Essay, "Santaland diaries" - p.233-234, 235
Barrel Fever (1994)

“In first class, you count on your fellow passengers to make you feel good about yourself. You're supposed to look around with pride, telling yourself that these are your kind of people.”

David Sedaris

21.07.2001 - p.445
Theft by Finding: Diaries, Volume 1 (1977-2002) (2017)

“On several occasions during my visit, she referred to herself as poor, and that depressed me. Most people would say they're broke. That word suggests a temporary setback. Poor, on the other hand, conveys a permanence.”

David Sedaris

09.11.2000 - p.431
Theft by Finding: Diaries, Volume 1 (1977-2002) (2017)

“Later I went to the design school and saw Kumar and Melamid, the Soviet dissident artists, who are funny. I sold them my soul for $1.”

David Sedaris

26.02.1981 - p.52
Theft by Finding: Diaries, Volume 1 (1977-2002) (2017)

“If you talk to people, you can have whatever you want.”

David Sedaris

26.09.1978 - p.21
Theft by Finding: Diaries, Volume 1 (1977-2002) (2017)

“Someone in the back of the room started singing "God Bless America."”

David Sedaris

The thing about "God Bless America" is that, after a certain point, nobody really knows the words. There's always a weird mumbling that follows "Stand beside her and guide her," and lasts until "From the mountains to the prairies."

12.09.2001 - p.455
Theft by Finding: Diaries, Volume 1 (1977-2002) (2017)

“After coming home, I listened to the radio and cleaned up a little. A woman on All Things Considered wrote a book of advice called If You Want to Write and mentioned the importance of keeping a diary. It was valuable, she said, because after a while you'd stop being forced and pretentious and become honest and unafraid of your thoughts.”

David Sedaris

01.07.1983 - p.94
Theft by Finding: Diaries, Volume 1 (1977-2002) (2017)

“Sure, some people are nice. Real nice. Nice like carpets so you can walk all over them.”

David Sedaris

16.04.1979 - p.31
Theft by Finding: Diaries, Volume 1 (1977-2002) (2017)

“Another old-fashioned practice I maintain is carrying a notebook, a small one I keep in my shirt pocket and never leave the house without. In it I register all the little things that strike me, not in great detail but just quickly. The following morning I'll review what I jotted down and look for the most meaningful moment in the previous day, the one in which I felt truly present.
It's worth mentioning that this is my edit. It wasn't easy revisiting what are now 156 volumes of my diary.”

David Sedaris

"Introduction". p.6, 7 [Page numbers per the 2017 Little, Brown hardback UK edition.]
Theft by Finding: Diaries, Volume 1 (1977-2002) (2017)

“The inevitable finally happened, just as I knew it would.”

David Sedaris

06.04.1999 - p.387
Theft by Finding: Diaries, Volume 1 (1977-2002) (2017)