Quotes from David Sedaris

even if I were informed, what's the likelihood of changing anyone's opinion, especially a couple of strangers'? If my own little mind is nailed shut, why wouldn't theirs be?

The better country club operated on the principle that Raleigh mattered, that its old families were fine ones, and that they needed a place where they could enjoy one another's company without being pawed at. Had we not found this laughable, our country club might have felt desperate.

I can't be alone in this, can I? And, of course, you don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. Therefore you keep the crocheted owl given to you by your second-youngest sister and accidentally on purpose drop the mug that reads "Owl Love You Always" and was sent by someone who clearly never knew you to begin with.

At noon a huge crowd of retarded people came to visit Santa and passed me on my little island. These people were profoundly retarded. They were rolling their eyes and wagging their tongues and staggering toward Santa. It was a large group of retarded people and after watching them for a few minutes I could not begin to guess where the retarded people ended and the regular New Yorkers began. Everyone looks retarded once you set your mind to it.

They did not live in a child's house, we lived in theirs.

Given the choice between four perfectly acceptable movies, they invariably opt for a walk through the Picasso museum or a tour of the cathedral, saying, "I didn't come all the way to Paris so I can sit in the dark." They make it sound so bad. "Yes," I say, "but this is the French dark. It's… darker than the dark we have back home.

Perhaps I've grown less likable over the years, or maybe I've just forgotten how to meet people. The initial introduction — the shaking-hands part — I can still manage. It's the follow-up that throws me. Who calls whom, and how often? What if you decide after the second or third meeting that you don't really like this person? Up to what point are you allowed to back out? I used to know these things, but now they're a mystery.

The writers she prefers are long dead and are on the wordy side. If the novel on the sofa is 700 pages long, and the author photo is an engraving, it's either hers or Hugh's.

we flew to Los Angeles, where I secured a new passport. The picture in my stolen one wasn't half bad, but in the new one I look like a penis with an old person's face drawn on it.

All of us take pride and pleasure in the fact that we are unique, but I'm afraid that when all is said and done the police are right: it all comes down to fingerprints.

He secretly thinks he looks like Marlon Brando, but take a good look a young Marlin Perkins is more like it! Maybe that's what he sees in Annette Kelper—he's an animal lover.

The fetus was minute - a congregation of loitering cells - and as with anything that informal, there was a good chance that it might disperse.

When apple-picking season ended, I got a job in a packing plant and gravitated toward short stories, which I could read during my break and reflect upon for the remainder of my shift. A good one would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit.

there's only so much you can do for a person who thinks Auschwitz is a brand of beer.

It seems crazy to cut smoking mothers out of textbooks, but within a few years they won't be allowed in movies either. A woman can throw her newborn child from the roof of a high-rise building. She can then retrieve the body and stomp on it while shooting into the windows of a day-care center, but to celebrate these murders by lighting a cigarette is to send a harmful message. There are, after all, young people watching, and we wouldn't want them to get the wrong idea.

It was, I thought, what evil must smell like.

The rules were just different back then, especially in regard to corporal punishment. Not only could you hit your own children, but you could also hit other people's.

Built around 1780... a two-hour train ride from Paris... the neighbor keeps his horses in my backyard... pies made with apples from my own trees... I caught the highlights of Hugh's broadcast and understood that my first goal was to make him my boyfriend, to trick or blackmail him into making some sort of commitment. I know it sounds calculating, but if you're not cute, you might as well be clever.

To be fair, he had never actually promised to be monogamous. That was my idea, and though I tried my hardest to convert him, the allure of other people was just too great.

Boston's That is good is Berlin's Das ist gut. It's an excellent way to start and leaves the listener thinking, 'Hey, Ich kann do dis.' :D

There were no computers in my high school, and the first two times I attempted college, people were still counting on their fingers and removing their shoes when the numbers got above ten.

When young, the animals were sweet. Then one day they became moody and violent, like human teenagers

I've outlawed "meds," "bestie," "bucket list," "dysfunctional," "expat," "cab-sav," and the verb "do" when used in a restaurant, as in "I'll do the snails on cinnamon toast.

What they do at 6:00 a.m. is anyone's guess. I only know that they're incredibly self-righteous about it and talk about the dawn as if it's a personal reward, bestowed on account of their great virtue.