Quotes from David Sedaris

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.

A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit.

I hate you' she said to me one afternoon. 'I really, really hate you.' Call me sensitive, but I couldn't help but take it personally.

After a few months in my parents' basement, I took an apartment near the state university, where I discovered both crystal methamphetamine and conceptual art. Either one of these things are dangerous, but in combination they have the potential to destroy entire civilizations.

When asked "What do we need to learn this for?" any high-school teacher can confidently answer that, regardless of the subject, the knowledge will come in handy once the student hits middle age and starts working crossword puzzles in order to stave off the terrible loneliness.

When a hurricane damaged my father's house, my brother rushed over with a gas grill, three coolers of beer, and an enormous Fuck-It Bucket - a plastic pail filled with jawbreakers and bite-size candy bars. ("When shit brings you down, just say 'fuck it,' and eat yourself some motherfucking candy.")

I'm the most important person in the lives of almost everyone I know and a good number of the people I've never even met.

Boys who spent their weekends making banana nut muffins did not, as a rule, excel in the art of hand-to-hand combat.

This left me alone to solve the coffee problem - a sort of catch-22, as in order to think straight I need caffeine, and in order to make that happen I need to think straight.

It's just a penis, right? Probably no worse for you than smoking.

I always think it's a good policy to like the people who like you.

I just enjoy lying on the couch and reading a magazine.

I like books on tape, and will listen to just about anything.

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.

But I don't distinguish between being laughed with, and laughed at. I'll take either.

I just think that the people who say: 'That's not true' when someone tells a story at dinner are the people who didn't get any laughs when they told their story.

I meet people at book signings. My record now, for signing, is ten and a half hours in one sitting.

I tend to show everything I do to my family, to check they won't be offended.

As a foreigner in London, I like that there are so many other foreigners.

I love 'Glee.'

I don't like being left to my own thoughts.

I think it's good to have the alone time. Well, I kind of have to, because I have to be alone in order to work, so I have alone time. And then I go on tour and I have being-around-people time.

It's unrealistic to live your life within such strict parameters.

Every so often my life will feel like a story. It doesn't have to be a big thing; in fact, most often, it's just the opposite.