110+ David Sedaris Quotes On Writing, Marriage And Humorous

David Sedaris is an American humorist, satirist, and radio contributor. He is best known for his humorous autobiographical essays and short stories. He has written several books, including Barrel Fever and Me Talk Pretty One Day, which have been translated into 25 languages. Following is our collection on famous quotes by David Sedaris on life, love, writing.

Top 10 David Sedaris Quotes

1. The Greeks had invented democracy, built the Acropolis and called it a day.
2. Real love amounts to withholding the truth, even when you're offered the perfect opportunity to hurt someone's feelings.
3. A zoo is a good place to make a spectacle of yourself, as the people around you have creepier, more photogenic things to look at.
4. There seemed to be some correlation between devotion to God and a misguided zeal for marshmallows.
5. 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.
6. I started writing when I was twenty, and my first book came out seventeen years later.
7. A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit.
8. But most good movies have a gun in them.
9. Like all of my friends, she's a lousy judge of character.
10. Boys who spent their weekends making banana nut muffins did not, as a rule, excel in the art of hand-to-hand combat.

David Sedaris Short Quotes

• Lovers of audio books learn to live with compromise.
• Snowball just leads elves on, elves and Santas. He is playing a dangerous game.
• If you aren't cute, you may as well be clever.
• As a child I assumed that when I reached adulthood, I would have grown-up thoughts.
• I've often lost faith in myself, I've never lost it in my family.
• If you read someone else's diary, you get what you deserve.
• I go to the movies at least five times a week, and after a while everything becomes a blur to me.
• If you're looking for sympathy you'll find it between shit and syphilis in the dictionary.
• I've been keeping diaries for 27 years.
• Actually I liked that 'Let the Right One In,' that Swedish vampire movie.

David Sedaris Quotes About Life

Besides, if I wanted to hear people speaking wall-to-wall French, all I had to do was remove my headphones and participate in what is known as ‘real life,’ a concept as uninviting as a shampoo cocktail. — David Sedaris

During episodes of unemployment I find it rewarding to sleep as much as possible-anything from twelve to fourteen hours a day is a good starting point. Sleep spares you humiliation and saves money at the same time: nothing to eat, nothing to buy, just lie back and dream your life away. — David Sedaris

To spend your days in the company of naked men - that was the life for me. 'Turn a bit to the left, Jean-Claude. I long to capture the playful quality of your buttocks. — David Sedaris

Now, I like a church service, but this was one of those write-your-own-vows sorts of things. Neither of them had ever picked up a pen in their life, but all of a sudden they’re poets, right, like that’s all it takes — being in love. — David Sedaris

I don't worry about being exposed. When I'm writing about myself I think about myself as a character. There is a ton of stuff going on in my life that I don't write about. If I need to write that stuff down, I write about myself in my diary. — David Sedaris

I just looked at the pattern of my life, decided I didn't like it, and changed. — David Sedaris

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. — David Sedaris

I spend so much time like living in the past or the future. I mean, I think most people do, really. And the moments when you're really present in your life can be pretty rare, really. — David Sedaris

He looked as though his life had not only passed him by but paused along the way to spit in his face. — David Sedaris

Each one of us is left to choose our own quality of life and take pleasure where we find it with the understanding that, like Mom used to say, sooner or later something's gonna get you. — David Sedaris

David Sedaris Quotes About Love

Some friendships are formed by a commonality of interests and ideas: you both love judo or camping or making your own sausage. Other friendships are forged in alliance against a common enemy. — David Sedaris

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. — David Sedaris

Paul Rudnick is a champion of truth (and love and great wicked humor) whom we ignore at our peril. — David Sedaris

It was the look you get when facing a sudden and insurmountable danger: the errant truck, the shaky ladder, the crazy person who pins you to the linoleum and insists, with increasing urgency, that everything you know and love can be undone by a grape. — David Sedaris

It's hard to love a place that's outlawed smoking but finds it perfectly acceptable to serve raw fish in a bath of chocolate. — David Sedaris

Of course, the diary helps me as well. 'That wasn't your position on July 7, 1991,' I'll remind Hugh an hour after we've had a fight. I'd have loved to rebut him sooner, but it takes awhile to look these things up. — David Sedaris

Remember that the most important thing is to try and love other people as much as they love you. — David Sedaris

We can't profess love without talking through hand puppets. — David Sedaris

The combination of ammonia and chloride can be lethal but I've discovered it can work miracles as long as you keep telling yourself, "I want to love, I want to live. — David Sedaris

If finding an apartment is like falling in love, buying one is like proposing on your first date and agreeing not to see each other until the wedding. — David Sedaris

David Sedaris Quotes About Writing

I've maintained old friendships, like with people I knew in the nineteen-seventies, but have lost the knack for meeting new people. This has a lot to do with my writing schedule. I don't want to be disturbed, and the willingness to be disturbed is, I think, part of being a good friend. — David Sedaris

Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it. — David Sedaris

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. — David Sedaris

I think if you write humor, then people don't - you know - they don't give you that much credit. They tend to think you just dictate your stories into a tape recorder. And I'm not necessarily insulted by that, because I think that just means that it looks easy. — David Sedaris

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. — David Sedaris

I've always been very upfront about the way I write, and I've always used the tools humorists use, such as exaggeration. — David Sedaris

No one writes dialect better than Flannery O'Connor. No one should even try. — David Sedaris

Sometimes you read something and it's just -- it doesn't invite a reader....Sometimes you read something and it's not saying, 'oh come in, come in have a seat. I'm going to tell you what happened.' Perhaps my writing comes off as conversational...and that takes effort. — David Sedaris

I started writing when I was twenty. My first book came out when I was thirty-five. But I never expected that it would happen quickly. — David Sedaris

When I taught, a lot of my students weren't big readers, so they would write something and I realized that they thought it belonged in a book. Like, they didn't know what the inside of a book looked like, you know what I mean? — David Sedaris

David Sedaris Quotes About Humorous

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. — David Sedaris

I've always had a way with the little people, making it a point to humor them without looking down my nose at their wasted empty lives. — David Sedaris

Everyone looks retarded once you set your mind to it. — David Sedaris

The humor section is the last place an author wants to be. They put your stuff next to collections of Cathy cartoons. — David Sedaris

Humor is necessary - it allows the reader to come up for air before dunking them under again. I need humor and I need it on the page to keep the reader going. — David Sedaris

David Sedaris Quotes About People

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?' — David Sedaris

Speed eliminates all doubt. Am I smart enough? Will people like me? Do I really look all right in this plastic jumpsuit? — David Sedaris

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. — David Sedaris

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. — David Sedaris

He die one day, and then he go above of my head to live with your father." He weared the long hair, and after he died, the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples." He nice, the Jesus. — David Sedaris

We were not a hugging people. In terms of emotional comfort it was our belief that no amount of physical contact could match the healing powers of a well made cocktail. — David Sedaris

I like nonfiction books about people with wretched lives. — David Sedaris

I can't seem to fathom that the things important to me are not important to other people as well, and so I come off sounding like a missionary, someone whose job it is to convert rather than listen. — David Sedaris

On a busy day twenty-two thousand people come to visit Santa, and I was told that it is an elf's lot to remain merry in the face of torment and adversity. I promised to keep that in mind. — David Sedaris

Standing in a two-hour line makes people worry that they're not living in a democratic nation. People stand in line for two houres and they go over the edge. — David Sedaris

David Sedaris Quotes About Kill

What can you say about the family who is suing the railroad after their drunk son was killed walking on the tracks? Trains don't normally sneak up on people. Unless they've derailed, you pretty much know where to find them. — David Sedaris

The thought of killing myself had slowed me down to five miles per hour. The thought of killing someone else stopped me completely. — David Sedaris

Sometimes the sins you haven't committed are all you have to hold on to. If you're really desperate, you might need to grope, saying, for example, "I've never killed anyone with a hammer" or "I've never stolen from anyone who didn't deserve it. — David Sedaris

I can't promise I'll never kill anyone again," he once said, strapping a refrigerator to his back. "It's unrealistic to live your life within such strict parameters — David Sedaris

I had to wrestle daily with both my inadequacy and my uncontrollable jealousy. I didn't want to kill her, but hoped someone else might do the job for me. — David Sedaris

David Sedaris Famous Quotes And Sayings

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. — David Sedaris

It was my friend Frank, a writer in San Francisco, who finally set me straight. When asked about my new look he put down his fork and stared at me for a few moments. "A bow tie announces to the world you can no longer get an erection." — David Sedaris

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. — David Sedaris

A week after my drugs ran out, I left my bed to perform at the college, deciding at the last minute to skip both the doughnut toss and the march of the headless plush toys. Instead, I just heated up a skillet of plastic soldiers, poured a milkshake over my head and called it a night. — David Sedaris

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. — David Sedaris

I guess my guilty pleasure would be listening to the British audio versions of the 'Harry Potter' books. — David Sedaris

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. — David Sedaris

Their house had real hardcover books in it, and you often saw them lying open on the sofa, the words still warm from being read. — David Sedaris

Neighbors would pass, and when they honked I'd remember that I was in my Speedo. Then I'd wrap my towel like a skirt around my waist and remind my sisters that this was not girlish but Egyptian, thank you very much. — David Sedaris

Hugh returned from his trip, and days later I still sounded like a Red Chinese asking questions about the democratic hinterlands. "And you actually saw people smoking in restaurants? Really! And offices, too? Oh, tell me again about the ashtrays in the hospital waiting room, and don't leave anything out." — David Sedaris

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. — David Sedaris

For as long as I can remember, my father saved. He saves money, he saves disfigured sticks that resemble disfigured celebrities, and most of all, he saves food. Cherry tomatoes, sausage biscuits, the olives plucked from other people's martinis --he hides these things in strange places until they are rotten. And then he eats them. — David Sedaris

My hands tend to be full enough dealing with people who hate me for who I am. Concentrate too hard on the millions of people who hate you for what you are and you're likely to turn into one of those unkempt, sloppy dressers who sag beneath the weight of the two hundred political buttons they wear pinned to their coats and knapsacks. — David Sedaris

The only bright spot in the entire evening was the presence of Kevin "Tubby" Matchwell, the eleven-year-old porker who tackled the role of Santa with a beguiling authenticity. The false beard tended to muffle his speech, but they could hear his chafing thighs all the way to the North Pole. — David Sedaris

... [I] recall thinking that the computer would never advance much further than this. Call me naïve, but I seemed to have underestimated the universal desire to sit in a hard plastic chair and stare at a screen until your eyes cross. — David Sedaris

If you are any kind of an artist, then validation . . . can be a result, but you're going to do the work anyway. — David Sedaris

My boyfriend got me a computer three years ago. I'll admit it does make things a lot easier. When I was working on a typewriter and I whited out a line, often I would choose a word to go in the space just because it fit. Now I don't have to do that. — David Sedaris

It didn't seem fair to me that Jon Stewart's rally didn't get the same kind of attention that Glenn Beck's did. Why was Beck's seen as checking the thermometer of the country, and Jon Stewart just dismissed as a satirist? — David Sedaris

This was the consequence of seeing too much and understanding the horrible truth: No one is safe. The world is not manageable. — David Sedaris

Kools and Newports were for black people and lower-class whites. Camels were for procrastinators, those who wrote bad poetry, and those who put off writing bad poetry. Merits were for sex addicts, Salems were for alcoholics, and Mores were for people who considered themselves to be outrageous but really weren't. — David Sedaris

The message was that if something is free, you should only take the best. If, on the other hand, you're forced to pay, it's best to lower the bar and not be so choosy. — David Sedaris

I won't put in a load of laundry, because the machine is too loud and would drown out other, more significant noises - namely, the shuffling footsteps of the living dead. — David Sedaris

Hugh consoled me, saying, "Don't let it get to you. There are plenty of things you're good at." When asked for some examples, he listed vacuuming and naming stuffed animals. He says he can probably come up with a few more, but he'll need some time to think. — David Sedaris

Up close the city constitutes an oppressive series of staircases, but from a distance it inspires fantasies of wealth and power so profound that even our communists are temporarily rendered speechless. — David Sedaris

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. — David Sedaris

My conscience is crosswired with my sweat glands, but there's a short in the system and I break out over things I didn't do, which only makes me look more suspect. — David Sedaris

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

Often I'd take out my magnifying glass and stare into the chaos that was her face. — David Sedaris

Most movies, I forget about them while I'm watching them. I go every single day. But I've never thought about participating in any way. It's like being at home all day. It was never a goal to me. — David Sedaris

I hated leaving a hole in the smoking world, and so I recruited someone to take my place. People have given me a lot of grief, but I'm pretty sure that after high school, this girl would have started anyway, especially if she chose the army over community college. — David Sedaris

I find it ridiculous to assign a gender to an inanimate object incapable of disrobing and making an occasional fool of itself. — David Sedaris

It make one's mouth hurt to speak with such forced merriment. — David Sedaris

Like anyone nostalgic for a time he didn't live through, I chose to weed out the little inconveniences: polio, say, or the thought of eating stewed squirrel. The world was simply grander back then, somehow more civilized, and nicer to look at. — David Sedaris

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. — David Sedaris

I gave my mother a matching set [of mugs] for Christmas, and she accepted them as graciously as possible, announcing that they would make the perfect pet bowls. The mugs were set on the kitchen floor and remained there until the cat chipped a tooth and went on a hunger strike. — David Sedaris

Faced with an exciting question, science tended to provide the dullest possible answer. Ions might charge the air but they fell flat when it came to charging the imagination - my imagination, anyway. — David Sedaris

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. — David Sedaris

The way Trump talks about Obama: presidents don't do that! What we're seeing now is a whole new level of vulgarity. I'm really hoping that it's not the rule from here on out. It's really distressing for me to witness this. I really hope we don't have to throw all decency out the window, just because Trump's president. — David Sedaris

You can't brace yourself for famine if you've never known hunger. — David Sedaris

The drama bug strikes hardest with Jews, homosexuals and plump women who wear their hair in bangs. These are people who, for one reason or another, desperately crave attention — David Sedaris

It's safe to assume that by 2085 guns will be sold in vending machines but you won't be able to smoke anywhere in America. — David Sedaris

I'd tried to straighten him out, but there's only so much you can do for a person who thinks Auschwitz is a brand of beer. — David Sedaris

Sometimes the sins you haven't committed are all you have left to hold onto. — David Sedaris

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. — David Sedaris

All I do is lie, and that has made me immune to compliments. — David Sedaris

Art isn't about following the rules. It's about breaking them. — David Sedaris

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. — David Sedaris

In the Netherlands now, I imagine it's legal to marry your own children. Get them pregnant, and you can abort your unborn grandbabies in a free clinic that used to be a church. — David Sedaris

You really burden the reader if you put things in but, "Oh, it's not interesting, but I'll put it in anyway." Then the reader's going to think, like, "Mmm... no thanks." So the thing is to cut all that stuff out before its published. — David Sedaris

The good thing about being gay was always that you didn't have a wedding. People would say, "He's gay, but at least he didn't make us go to his wedding. He didn't make us fly across the country. He didn't make us choose between the fish and the beef." — David Sedaris

I needed to temper (my dad's) enthusiasm a bit (about attending Princeton), and so I announced that I would be majoring in patricide...My mom was actually jealous. — David Sedaris

In the beginning, I was put off by the harshness of German. Someone would order a piece of cake, and it sounded as if it were an actual order, like, "Cut the cake and lie facedown in that ditch between the cobbler and the little girl." — David Sedaris

I wish that I had re-edited 'Theft By Finding' after I did the audio. Because the audio took 40 hours in the studio, and I was standing on my feet. So toward the end of it I'd be looking at certain diary entries and I would think, "Is this really worth my time to read this out loud?" And I would think, "No, it is not." I would have cut out 75 pages, just because I was tired of standing up. — David Sedaris

Every day we're told that we live in the greatest country on earth. And it's always stated as an undeniable fact: Leos are born between July 23 and August 22, fitted queen-size sheets measure sixty by eighty inches, and America is the greatest country on earth. Having grown up with this in our ears, it's startling to realize that other countries have nationalistic slogans of their own, none of which are 'We're number two! — David Sedaris

They were Jesuits," she told me. "That means they believe in God but not in terlet paper. You should have seen their underwear. Disgusting. — David Sedaris

If I were president, I would turn the tables and allow the fetus to abort its mother. — David Sedaris

Cover your glass in France or Germany --even worse, in England - and in the voice of someone who has personally affronted, your host will ask why you're not drinking. 'Oh, I just don't feel like it this morning.' 'Why not?' 'I guess I'm not in the mood?' 'Well, this'll put you in the mood. Here. Drink up.' 'No, really, I'm OK.' 'Just taste it.' 'Actually, I'm sort of...well, I sort of have a problem with it.' 'Then how about half a glass? — David Sedaris

Watching him was like opening the door to a siniging telegram; you know it's supposed to be entertaining, but you can't get beyond the sad fact that this person actually thinks he bringing some joy into your life. Somewhere he had a mother who sifted through a shoe box of mimeographed playbills, pouring herself another drink and wondering when her son would come to his senses and swallow some drain cleaner. — David Sedaris

I mean, I'm always happy if I have, like, humiliating asshole things that I did. I think: Oh good, that's a good story. Because if you write about humiliating asshole things other people do it doesn't work as well. I mean, you can, but you can get away with it better if you talk about what an asshole you are. It's much easier. — David Sedaris

My first semester I had only nine students. Hoping they might view me as professional and well prepared, I arrived bearing name tags fashioned in the shape of maple leaves. — David Sedaris

I'm not a reporter but the 'New Yorker' treats everyone like a reporter. — David Sedaris

The things I've bought from strangers in the dark would curl your hair. — David Sedaris

But I'm a humorist. I'm not a reporter, I never pretended to be a reporter. — David Sedaris

Life Lessons by David Sedaris

1. David Sedaris teaches us to be honest and open about our experiences, no matter how embarrassing or difficult they may be.
2. He also encourages us to find humor in the everyday and to be able to laugh at ourselves.
3. Lastly, Sedaris shows us that it is possible to make a living by writing about our own lives, and that our stories can be valuable and meaningful.