Quotes by David Sedaris

About David Sedaris:

David Raymond Sedaris is an American humorist, comedian, author, and radio contributor. He was publicly recognized in 1992 when National Public Radio broadcast his essay "SantaLand Diaries". He published his first collection of essays and short stories, Barrel Fever, in 1994. His next five essay collections, Naked (1997), Holidays on Ice (1997), Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000), Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (2004), and When You Are Engulfed in Flames (2008), became New York Times Best Sellers. In 2010, he released a collection of stories, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary. In 2013, Sedaris released his latest collection of essays, Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

In Japanese and Italian, the response to ["How are you?"] is "I'm fine, and you?" In German it's answered with a sigh and a slight pause, followed by "Not so good.

David Sedaris

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.

David Sedaris

I don’t know why it was, exactly, but nothing irritated my father quite like the sound of his children’s happiness. Group crying, he could stand, but group laughing was asking for it, especially at the dinner table.

David Sedaris

I'd think it strange that the boardinghouse attracted both him and me, but that's what cheap places do -- draw in people with no money. An apartment of my own was unthinkable at that time of my life, and even if I'd found an affordable one it wouldn'...

David Sedaris

The houses looked like something a child might draw, a row of shaky squares with triangles on top. Add a door, add two windows. Think of putting a tree in the front yard, and then decide against it because branches aren't worth the trouble.

David Sedaris

The things I've bought from strangers in the dark would curl your hair.

David Sedaris

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

It's from Scandinavia!" This, we learned, was the name of a region, a cold and forsaken place where people stayed indoors and plotted the death of knobs.

David Sedaris

My confessions did nothing to alter this situation, but for the first time in my life I felt that somebody actually knew me. Three somebodies, to be exact. Two were roaming the highway in a Cadillac, doing God knows what with a CB radio, but the othe...

David Sedaris

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

David Sedaris

Kools and Newports were for black people and lower-class whites. Camels were for procrastinators, those who wrote bad poetry, and those who put off writing bad poetry. Merits were for sex addicts, Salems were for alcoholics, and Mores were for people...

David Sedaris

One year I went as a pirate, but from then on I went as a hobo. It's a word you don't hear anymore. Along with 'tramp,' it's been replaced by 'homeless person,' which isn't the same thing. Unlike someone who was evicted or lost his house in a fire, t...

David Sedaris

I'm dating myself, but this was before Jesus Christ. We worshiped a God named Sashatiba, who had five eyes, including one on the Adam's apple.

David Sedaris

There was my life before I told a strange woman in a negligee that I was a homosexual, and now there would be my life after, two chapters so dissimilar in style and content that they might have been written by different people.

David Sedaris

It's astonishing the amount of time that certain straight people devote to gay sex - trying to determine what goes where and how often. They can't imagine any system outside their own, and seem obsessed with the idea of roles, both in bed and out of ...

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 m...

David Sedaris

In Paris the cashiers sit rather than stand. They run your goods over a scanner, tally up the price, and then ask you for exact change. The story they give is that there aren't enough euros to go around. "The entire EU is short on coins." And I say, ...

David Sedaris

I hoped our lives would continue this way forever, but inevitably the past came knocking. Not the good kind that was collectible but the bad kind that had arthritis.

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

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 des...

David Sedaris

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 pr...

David Sedaris

Author Bio

  • NameDavid Sedaris
  • DescriptionAmerican author
  • BornDecember 26, 1956
  • CountryUnited States Of America
  • ProfessionWriter; Essayist
  • AwardsLambda Literary Award