Quotes from David Sedaris

I had paid for my folly and, as a reward, was invited to take part in the nest builder's performance piece. The script was great. 'When I bleat here, do you want me to just bleat or to really let go and "bleat, bleat"?' I asked. 'I feel like "bleat, bleating," but if Mother/Destroyer is going to be crawling through the birth canal of concertina wire, I don't want to steal focus, you know what I mean?

Like most seasoned phonies, I roundly suspect that everyone is as disingenuous as I am.

My sister Amy lives above a deaf girl and has learned quite a bit of sign language. She taught some to me and so now I am able to say, "SANTA HAS A TUMOR IN HIS HEAD THE SIZE OF AN OLIVE. MAYBE IT WILL GO AWAY TOMORROW BUT I DON'T THINK SO.

His embarassment would have pleased me, but once he recovered, there would be that awkward period that sometimes culminates in a handshake. I didn't want to touch these people's hands or see things from their point of view, I just wanted to continue hating them. So I kept my mouth shut and stared off into space.

It's always so satisfying when you can twist someone's hatred into guilt--make her realize that she was wrong, too quick to judge, too unwilling to look beyond her own petty concerns.

Six months earlier, my ice breaker concerned a stripper who became a quadriplegic and eventually had her vagina eaten away by bedsores, not the easiest thing to wrangle into a conversation. But if I could pull that off, I figured that a burning mouse should pose no problem.

Drawing attention to Gretchen's weight was the sort of behavior my mother referred to as 'stirring the turd,' and I did it a lot that summer.

Perhaps the little Negro girl was holding a concealed razor blade. Maybe she was one of the troublemakers out for a fresh white scalp.

Everyone had taken their places, when I excused myself to visit the bathroom, and there, in the toilet, was the absolute biggest turd I have ever seen in my life - no toilet paper or anything, just this long and coiled specimen, as thick as a burrito.

If you don't want to marry a homosexual, then don't. But what gives you the right to weigh in on your neighbor's options? It's like voting on whether or not redheads should be allowed to celebrate Christmas.

You're not supposed to talk about your good deeds, I know. It effectively negates them and in the process makes people hate you.

You'd have to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to know what you're getting yourself into, so if there's blame, blame yourself.

didn't need a fifteen-minute conversation, just some human interaction. It can be had, and easily: a gesture, a joke, something that says, "I live in this world too.

You have what we in France call 'good time teeth,'" she said. "Why on earth would you want to change them?" "Um, because I can floss with the sash to my bathrobe?

The iPhone 2 led to the 3, but I didn't get the 4 or 5 because I'm holding out for the 7, which, I've heard on good authority, can also be used as a Taser. This will mean I'll have just one less thing to carry around.

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 very nice of Paul to give me this vase,' she once said, arranging a bouquet of wildflowers into the skull-shaped bong my brother had left on the kitchen table. 'It's nontraditional, but that's the Rooster's way. He's a free spirit, and we're lucky to have him.

the beauty of an art school: as long as you can pay the tuition, they will never, even in the gentlest way, suggest that you have no talent.

She just happens to be my father, young man, and I'd appreciate it of you'd show her a little respect.

Opinions constantly shifted and evolved, were fluid the same way thoughts were. Ten minutes into The Exorcist you might say, "This is boring." An hour later you could decide that it was the best thing you'd ever seen, and it was no different with people. The villain at three in the afternoon might be the hero by sunset. It was all just storytelling.

Honestly, though, does choice even come into it? Is it my fault that the good times fade to nothing while the bad ones burn forever bright?

Today a child told Santa Ken that he wanted his dead father back and a complete set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Everyone wants those Turtles.

I attributed their behavior to the fact that they didn't have a TV, but television didn't teach you everything. Asking for candy on Halloween was called trick-or-treating, but asking for candy on November first was called begging, and it made people uncomfortable. This was one of the things you were supposed to learn simply by being alive, and it angered me that the Tomkeys did not understand it.

What are you, tap dancing up there? You want a put on a show, do you? Well, the theater's closed for the night. Take your act on the road; it's four o'clock in the morning,goddamnit.

Then he reached to an even higher shelf and brought down another plastic grocery bag, this one from Tesco, which is decidedly less upscale. "Now, a smell is going to hit you when I open this up, but don't worry," he said. "It's just the smoke they used to preserve the head." That's a phrase you don't hear too often, so it took a moment for it to sink in.