David Sedaris
The humor section is the last place an author wants to be. They put your stuff next to collections of Cathy cartoons.Collection: Humor
It's odd the things that people remember. Parents will arrange a birthday party, certain it will stick in your mind forever. You'll have a nice time, then two years later you'll be like, 'There was a pony there? Really? And a clown with one leg?'Collection: Birthday
When I look at a lot of older stuff that I've written, I think one sign of amateur humor writing is when you see people trying too hard.Collection: Humor
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.
My sister Tiffany told me years ago, 'You can never write about me.' Then she called six months ago and said she wanted to be in a story. She was worried people thought I didn't like her.
Do I exaggerate? Boy, do I, and I'd do it more if I could get away with it.
If I'm riding my bike I just replay the same scenarios over and over in my head, like I haven't had a new mental adventure since high school. So that's what I like about books on tape, so my mind can't wander anywhere.
But I don't distinguish between being laughed with, and laughed at. I'll take either.
I always knew I wanted it to be illustrated.
I meet people at book signings. My record now, for signing, is ten and a half hours in one sitting.
Lovers of audio books learn to live with compromise.
I like to reserve the right to write about whatever I like.
If you read somebody's diary, you get what you deserve.
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.
My family isn't really all that different from anyone else's. Well, maybe they're a bit more entertaining.
Sometimes with 'The New Yorker,' they have grammar rules that just don't feel right in my mouth.
I guess my guilty pleasure would be listening to the British audio versions of the 'Harry Potter' books.
They were nothing like the French people I had imagined. If anything, they were too kind, too generous and too knowledgable in the fields of plumbing and electricity.
I like nonfiction books about people with wretched lives.
I love things made out of animals. It's just so funny to think of someone saying, 'I need a letter opener. I guess I'll have to kill a deer.
People ask me, 'Have you ever considered doing stand-up?' To me it would be less offensive if someone asked me, 'Have you ever considered dental implants?'
I always think it's a good policy to like the people who like you.
I love 'Glee.' I cry all the time when I watch 'Glee' because I don't know if it's satire or melodrama and that makes me feel like the writing is aware of itself, and that makes it okay to cry.
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 went from having 50 listeners to 50 million listeners.
I've been keeping diaries for 27 years.
People ask if I miss it, but they don't understand that American culture is so ubiquitous that there's nothing to miss. I don't see myself moving back. It's not that I hate the United States. I just always thought it would be a shame not to live in a foreign country.
No one writes dialect better than Flannery O'Connor. No one should even try.
I go to the movies at least five times a week, and after a while everything becomes a blur to me.
I like books on tape, and will listen to just about anything.
I started writing when I was twenty, and my first book came out seventeen years later.
I don't like being left to my own thoughts.
I felt uncomfortable calling myself a writer until I started with 'The New Yorker,' and then I was like, 'Okay, now you can call yourself that.'
There are lots of things that happen to me that I don't write about.
Sometimes I say to myself, 'Oh, I wish I could win a Tony Award', although I'm not that bothered.
I love getting attention, just like a child loves it, and it's never worn off. So when people say, oh the book signings go on, why would I shoo away someone who's giving me attention? What part of standing in line for 10 hours to say how much they love you is bad to you?
I started writing one afternoon when I was twenty, and ever since then I have written every day. At first I had to force myself. Then it became part of my identity, and I did it without thinking.
I've never gone on Facebook and am not sure I understand it. The same goes for Twitter. I have someone sending tweets and pretending to be me, but I don't know why.
I've been keeping a diary for thirty-three years and write in it every morning. Most of it's just whining, but every so often there'll be something I can use later: a joke, a description, a quote. It's an invaluable aid when it comes to winning arguments. 'That's not what you said on February 3, 1996,' I'll say to someone.
As a foreigner in London, I like that there are so many other foreigners.
I just enjoy lying on the couch and reading a magazine.
I don't have email.
To say that a humorist exaggerates to get big laughs, I don't see how that's big news.
I think it's important to take chances.
I cry all the time when I watch 'Glee' because I don't know if it's satire or melodrama and that makes me feel like the writing is aware of itself, and that makes it OK to cry.
The only real advice you can give anyone is to keep writing.
Actually I liked that 'Let the Right One In,' that Swedish vampire movie.
But most good movies have a gun in them.
I don't think my life is more interesting than anybody else's.
Because I've always been a fairly nervous person.