Quotes by David Sedaris

“My mother was, for the most part, delighted with my brother and regarded him with the bemused curiosity of a brood hen discovering she has hatched a completely different species. 'I think it was ve...”

“The woman spoke with a heavy western North Carolina accent, which I used to discredit her authority. Here was a person for whom the word 'pen' had two syllables. He people undoubtedly drank from cl...”

“Nobody likes having a problem, but having a convoluted, bureaucratic one is even more galling.”

“On a busy day twenty-two thousand people come to visit Santa, and I was told that it is an elf's lot to remain merry in the face of torment and adversity. I promised to keep that in mind.”

“Randall, the gay alcoholic in the house next door, boldly peeps through my windows. 'Boy, you sure rock in that chair a lot,' he said last week, his face pressed against my screen. This time I was...”

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

“My conscience is crosswired with my sweat glands, but there's a short in the system and I break out over things I didn't do, which only makes me look more suspect.”

“I would later discover it was a bad idea to gather more than two of these people in an enclosed area for any length of time. The stage was not only a physical place but also a state of mind, and th...”

“Each one of us is left to choose our own quality of life and take pleasure where we find it with the understanding that, like Mom used to say, sooner or later something's gonna get you.”

“Scream at the mangled leather carcass lying at the foot of the stairs, and my parents would roar with laughter. "That's what you get for leaving your wallet on the kitchen table.”

“If some people are outed, are other people inned? Can we say that someone has been besided or overed?”

“The guilt applies only to those things that are being given away for free.”

“It was my friend Frank, a writer in San Francisco, who finally set me straight. When asked about my new look he put down his fork and stared at me for a few moments. "A bow tie announces to the wor...”

“He's as nutty as a vegan T-bone.”

“Its not lost on me that Im so busy recording life, I dont have time to really live it.”

“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 obs...”

“I look at these people and can't quite believe that they exist. Are they professional actors? I wonder. Or are they simply laymen who want a lot of attention? To put them in perspective, I think of...”

“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. ...”

“My family isn't really all that different from anyone else's. Well, maybe they're a bit more entertaining.”

“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...”