David Sedaris Quotes

126 Sourced Quotes

"I love things made out of animals," Sedaris says, holding a knife with a hoof for a handle. "It's just so funny to think of someone saying, 'I need a letter opener. I guess I'll have to kill a deer.'"

David Sedaris
I haven't got the slightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out.

David Sedaris
I'd always thought that I understood this, but lately I realize that what I call "understanding" is basically just fantasizing.

David Sedaris
There's a reason regular people don't appear on TV: we're boring.

David Sedaris
They were Jesuits," she told me. "That means they believe in God but not in terlet paper. You should have seen their underwear. Disgusting.

David Sedaris
As I searched the atlas for somewhere to run to, Hugh made a case for his old stomping grounds. His first suggestion was Beirut, where he went to nursery school. His family left there in the midsixties and moved to the Congo. After that, it was Ethiopia, and then Somalia, all fine places in his opinion. 'Let's save Africa and the Middle East for when I decide to quit living,' I said.

David Sedaris
Einstein wrote that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. That said, is it crazier to repeatedly throw yourself against a window, or to repeatedly open that window, believing the creatures that are throwing themselves against it might come into your house, take a look around, and leave with no hard feelings?

David Sedaris
Amy adored both the new look and the new person it allowed her to be. Following the photo shoot, she wore her bruises to the dry cleaner and the grocery store. Most people nervously looked away, but on the rare occasions someone would ask what happened, my sister would smile as brightly as possible, saying, 'I'm in love. Can you believe it? I'm finally, totally in love, and I feel great.

David Sedaris
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.

David Sedaris
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'.

David Sedaris
The Korean man nodded, the way you do when you're a foreigner and understand that someone has finished a sentence.

David Sedaris
To spend your days in the company of naked men - that was the life for me. 'Turn a bit to the left, Jean-Claude. I long to capture the playful quality of your buttocks.

David Sedaris
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 world you can no longer get an erection.

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 to remain merry in the face of torment and adversity. I promised to keep that in mind.

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

David Sedaris
I'd always been afraid of sick people, and so had my mother. It wasn't that we feared catching their brain aneurysm or accidentally ripping out their IV. I think it was their fortitude that frightened us. Sick people reminded us not of what we had, but of what we lacked. Everything we said sounded petty and insignificant; our complaints paled in the face of theirs, and without our complaints, there was nothing to say.

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

David Sedaris
There's a lot I don't tell my father when he calls asking after Amy. He wouldn't understand that she has no interest in getting married and was, in fact, quite happy to break up with her live-in boyfriend, whom she replaced with an imaginary boyfriend named Ricky. The last time she was asked out by a successful bachelor, Amy hesitated before saying, 'Thanks for asking, but I'm really not into white guys right now.

David Sedaris
Every gathering has its moment. As an adult, I distract myself by trying to identify it, dreading the inevitable downswing that is sure to follow. The guests will repeat themselves one too many times, or you'll run out of dope or liquor and realize that it was all you ever had in common.

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

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

David Sedaris
Up close the city constitutes an oppressive series of staircases, but from a distance it inspires fantasies of wealth and power so profound that even our communists are temporarily rendered speechless.

David Sedaris
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
The only bright spot in the entire evening was the presence of Kevin "Tubby" Matchwell, the eleven-year-old porker who tackled the role of Santa with a beguiling authenticity. The false beard tended to muffle his speech, but they could hear his chafing thighs all the way to the North Pole.

David Sedaris