Quotes from David Sedaris

We're not pessimists, exactly, but in late middle age, when you envision your life ten years down the line, you're more likely to see a bedpan than a Tony Award.

If you think I'm putting my bra back on for this bullshit, you are so sorely mistaken.

I'm pretty sure I could tumble down all the stairs in the Empire State Building, naked, with a greased-up pepper grinder in each hand, and a box of candles around my neck, and still end up in the lobby with an empty rectum.

I attribute my wife's language to the fact that she's one-quarter spaniel. She says she's only an eighth, but, come on, the ears say it all. That and her mouth. (The Faithful Setter)

Her: So how was your trip in? You: Well, I was originally going to fly, but then this tiger offered to carry me very gently in her mouth. I said OK, but you know what? She wasn't gentle at all. One of her teeth pierced my small intestine, so now, on top of everything else, I have to shit in a bag every day for the rest of my life! Her: Well, that is just awesome. We're all so glad you made it.

I once considered suing Farrah Fawcett for invasion of privacy. Hardly a day passed when I didn't see her on a magazine cover, an ad, a poster. She was destroying my life, but now she's OK.

The offices were like a national holding center for the trainably banal, occupied by people who decorated their cubicles with quilted, heart-shaped picture frames and those tiny plush bears with the fierce spring grip that cling to lamps and computer terminals, personalized to read "Terri's bear" or "I wuv you very beary much!

It was a father, one hand resting teapot-style on his hip, and the other - what would be the spout - formed into a fist.

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.

I had discovered, or rediscoverd, that crying is a pleasure—that it can be a pleasure beyond all reckoning if your head is pressed in your mother's waist and her hands are on your back, and if she happens to be wearing clean clothes.

The word love was replaced by a heart shape I'm guessing they'll put on the typewriter keyboard any day now, right beside the exclamation point.

It really is torture to sit around the house and write all day. I'm thinking it might motivate me to finish the book faster, the thought that after it's finished I can return to housecleaning. The

Did you just tell that lady you're a doctor?" Amy would ask. "A little," I'd say.

It made no sense naturewise—owls and songbirds work different shifts, and even if they didn't they would still never be friends.

One day I'll wish I had a recording of Gretchen that I could play when I start feeling sorry for myself. I don't know that I've ever met a more enthusiastic person. Her key, I think, is that she's never stopped being interested in things. She's never decided that everything reminds her of something else, that everything worthwhile has been crossed off her list.

After a year, you realize it takes time to rail against injustice, time you might better spend questioning fondue or describing those ferrets you couldn't afford. Unless, of course, social injustice is you thing, in which case- knock yourself out. The point is to find out who you are and to be true to that person. Because so often you can't. Won't people turn away if they know the real me? you wonder.

started feeling real sorry for everybody, even though they were screaming and acting silly. I thought about how much work it was to have fun, and how brave we all were for going to the trouble, since the easiest thing would be to just moan and cry and bite the walls, because we're all going to die anyway, sooner or later. Isn't that sad? I saw how every human life is a story, and the story always ends badly.

I wonder whose job it was to assign these sexes in the first place. Did he do his work right there in the sanitarium, or did they rent him a little office where he could get away from all the noise?

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 lying on my bed with Katherine's cats. I'm watching them while she's out of town. I can be very mushy, and he watched me kissing them and saying that all the other cats in the neighborhood were jealous of their beauty.

Then I met a woman named Janine who was bitten and had to spend a week in the hospital. "It was completely my own fault," she said. "I shouldn't have been wearing sandals." "It didn't have to strike you," I reminded her. "It could have just slid away." Janine was the type who'd likely blame herself for getting mugged. "It's what I get for having anything worth taking!" she'd probably say.

This is like ordering someone to find you attractive, and it doesn't work. I've tried it.

It's as though we had asked to have ice cubes in our wine, like, Ick, who are you?

He spends a lot of time telling you how smart he is, which is odd because, if you're truly all that bright, people can usually figure it out on their own.

Our mother became the living ghost that haunted it, gaunt now and rattling ice cubes instead of chains.