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And One Of The Things I Noticed Pretty Early On In Art School Was That My Classmates Had No Notion Of An Audience. Right? I Mean, Growing Up With The Mother That I Did, I Learned That When You Walk Into The Dry Cleaners, There's An Audience Waiting For You. You Know, Maybe It's Just The Person Behind The Counter.

-David Sedaris

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And One Of The

David Sedaris

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And One Of The Things I Noticed Pretty Early On In Art School Was That My Classmates Had No Notion Of An Audience. Right? I Mean, Growing Up With The Mother That I Did, I Learned That When You Walk Into The Dry Cleaners, There's An Audience Waiting For You. You Know, Maybe It's Just The Person Behind The Counter.

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Sometimes I Say To Myself, 'oh, I Wish I Could Win A Tony Award', Although I'm Not That Bothered.

I Always Think It's A Good Policy To Like The People Who Like You.

Sometimes People Say, Do You Want A Drink? And I Say, Oh, I'd Like To, But I'm A Tragic Alcoholic. I Always Say Tragic. I'm A Tragic Alcoholic.

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 To Reserve The Right To Write About Whatever I Like.

Every Gathering Has Its Moment. As An Adult, I Distract Myself By Trying To Identify It, Dreading The Inevitable Downswing That Is Sure To Follow. The Guests Will Repeat Themselves One Too Many Times, Or You'll Run Out Of Dope Or Liquor And Realize That It Was All You Ever Had In Common.

Sometimes With 'the New Yorker,' They Have Grammar Rules That Just Don't Feel Right In My Mouth.

The Interesting Thing About Gay People Is That You Can't Really Put On A Wedding Without Them. They're The Ones Who Make Your Dress, And Do The Flowers And The Catering. They've Toiled In The Wedding Industry All These Years But Were Never Allowed To Do It Themselves.

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.

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.

What Other People Call Dark And Despairing, I Call Funny.

Also, I Used To Think That One Day I Might Get Someone To Iron My Shirts, But The Truth Is I Really Like Doing Them Myself.

What I Really Hated, Of Course, Was My Mind. There Must Have Been An Off Switch Somewhere, But I Was Damned If I Could Find It.

I Go To The Movies At Least Five Times A Week, And After A While Everything Becomes A Blur To Me.

Everyone Looks Retarded Once You Set Your Mind To It.

I Hoped Our Lives Would Continue This Way Forever, But Inevitably The Past Came Knocking. Not The Good Kind That Was Collectible But The Bad Kind That Had Arthritis.

I See You That Have A Little Swimming Mouse

Listen, You Might Want To Pack A Few Of Your Things Together Before Going To Bed. The Former Bishop Of Turkey Will Be Coming Tonight Along With Six To Eight Black Men. They Might Put Some Candy In Your Shoes, They Might Stuff You Into A Sack And Take You To Spain, Or They Might Just Pretend To Kick You. We Don't Know For Sure, But We Want You To Be Prepared." This Was The Reward For Living In The Netherlands. As A Child You Get To Hear This Story, And As An Adult You Get To Turn Around And Repeat It.

Speed Eliminates All Doubt. Am I Smart Enough? Will People Like Me? Do I Really Look All Right In This Plastic Jumpsuit?

The Word 'phobic' Has Its Place When Properly Used, But Lately It's Been Declawed By The Pompous Insistence That Most Animosity Is Based Upon Fear Rather Than Loathing.

I Met A Young Woman The Other Day, And She Said, What Advice Would You Have For A Writer, And I Said It Would Be To Work Every Day... Your Job Is To Write. The Rest Of It Will Take Care Of Itself. But, Generally, It Seems ... You Know How That Is, You Meet People And They Have A Talent For Self-promotion. Those Are The Pushy People. And You Know Their Writing's Not Going To Be Any Good, Because That's Not Their Talent.

But Most Good Movies Have A Gun In Them.

In Order To Get The Things I Want, It Helps Me To Pretend I’m A Figure In A Daytime Drama, A Schemer. Soap Opera Characters Make Emphatic Pronouncements. They Ball Up Their Fists And State Their Goals Out Loud. ‘i Will Destroy Buchanan Enterprises,’ They Say. ‘phoebe Wallingford Will Pay For What She’s Done To Our Family.’ Walking Home With The Back Half Of The Twelve-foot Ladder, I Turned To Look In The Direction Of Hugh’s Loft. ‘you Will Be Mine,’ I Commanded.

I Was The Type Of Person Who Was The Question-asker. And Not Just Genuine Questions, I Would Ask A Question So The Author Would Know How Much I Knew About Them. Once I Went To A Tobias Wolff Reading. I Knew He Was Teaching At Syracuse At That Time. And So, I Remember Asking Him How He Liked Syracuse. People Do That To Me Now And It's Okay. There Is Rarely A Time When I Just Have Had Enough.

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.

No One Writes Dialect Better Than Flannery O'connor. No One Should Even Try.

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.

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.

We're Not Unique In Our Family. We're More Ambitious But We're Not Special. I'm Not Funnier Than Anyone Else In My Family; It's Just That We Wanted More Than Raleigh, North Carolina, Had To Offer. If My Brother Wanted More Than Raleigh Had To Offer, You Would Know His Name. My Sister Lisa Has A Really Unique And Different Voice, But She Doesn't Want That. She's A Fine Writer, But Never Said, "i Want A Book. I Want That Kind Of Attention."

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.

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.

We Can't Profess Love Without Talking Through Hand Puppets.

It Makes Me Wonder Sometimes. Remember A Couple Years Ago, When Mexicans Went On Strike? It Was Talked About A Little Bit But Not That Much. But Some Old White People, And There Aren't Even That Many, They Put Bonnets On, And Then They Control The News.

There Are A Lot Of College Writing Textbooks That Will Include Essays And Short Stories, And After Reading The Story Or Essay, There Will Be Questions Such As "have You Had Any Experience With A Pedophile In Your Family?" Or "when Was The Last Time You Saw Your Mother Drunk?" And They're Just Really Good At Prompting Stories. You Answer The Question, And Sometimes That Can Spring Into A Story.

Jeremy, Good Luck On Your First Marriage.

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.

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.

Living In A Foreign Country Is One Of Those Things That Everyone Should Try At Least Once. My Understanding Was That It Completed A Person, Sanding Down The Rough Provincial Edges And Transforming You Into A Citizen Of The World. What I Find Appealing In Life Abroad Was The Inevitable Sense Of Helplessness It Would Inspire. Equally Exciting Would Be The Work Involved In Overcoming That Helplessness. There Would Be A Goal Involved, And I Like Having Goals.

The Thought Of Killing Myself Had Slowed Me Down To Five Miles Per Hour. The Thought Of Killing Someone Else Stopped Me Completely.

Killing Someone

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."

Asking Questions

I Rejected The Word Humorist For A Long Time Because I Thought That It Meant You Had, Like, A Cardigan Sweater With Patches On The Elbows, But Now I'm Old And I Do. I Grew Into That Word. I Think At Heart, All This Time, I've Been A Diarist. I'm Not Ashamed Of It.

I Like Listening To Books As Well, As That Way You Can Iron At The Same Time.

They Were Jesuits," She Told Me. "that Means They Believe In God But Not In Terlet Paper. You Should Have Seen Their Underwear. Disgusting.

Because I've Always Been A Fairly Nervous Person.

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.

I Always Used To Reach For The Cigarette When The Phone Rang, And I Figured Nobody Would Ever Call Me In Tokyo. The Time Difference Is So Profound It's, Like, Already September In Tokyo, And I Figured Nobody Would Be Able To Work It Out.

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.

Most People Would Have Found It Grotesque, But When You're In Love Nothing Is So Abstract Or Horrible That It Can't Be Thought Of As Cute.

I've Never Written About Sex In My Diary. Like If You Read My Diary, You Wouldn't Think I'm A Virgin, But You Would Have No Idea What It Is That I've Actually Ever Done.

One Thing I Like About The United States, And I Kind Of Miss About The United States, Is There's An Election Coming Up Here In England, But No One's Going To Have A Sign In Front Of Their House. Nobody's Going To Wear Buttons. And In France, Same Thing. In America I Like That People Have Signs And Buttons And Bumper Stickers. Sometimes You'll Smile At Someone From A Distance, Then You'll Get Up Close And You'll See Their Pin, And You're Like, "oh My God. I Wasted A Smile On You?"

I Tend To Show Everything I Do To My Family, To Check They Won't Be Offended.

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."

I Started Typing Diary In, I Don't Know, 1978 Or '79, But Then The Computer Changed That A Lot. Because With The Computer If You Were Writing And You Realized You Had Three Sentences In A Row That Started With The Word "he," You Could Fix That Right Up, Whereas On A Typewriter You'd Think, "well, I'm Not Going To Change The Whole Page. It's My Diary." So That Made A Difference.

I Think It Just Has To Do With Getting Older And Getting Better At What It Was I Was Doing, And That I Could Take Something Small And Kind Of Take My Time With It. I Think Actually What That Has To Do With Is I Quit Drinking. Before That I Told Myself I Could Only Drink If I Was - If I Was Writing, I Had To Be Drinking. So I Was On A Timer, Because Eventually You Get Too Drunk To Write.

When Forced To Leave My House For An Extended Period Of Time, I Take My Typewriter With Me, And Together We Endure The Wretchedness Of Passing Through The X-ray Scanner. The Laptops Roll Merrily Down The Belt, While I’m Instructed To Stand Aside And Open My Bag. To Me It Seems Like A Normal Enough Thing To Be Carrying, But The Typewriter’s Declining Popularity Arouses Suspicion And I Wind Up Eliciting The Sort Of Reaction One Might Expect When Traveling With A Cannon. It’s A Typewriter,’ I Say. ‘you Use It To Write Angry Letters To Airport Security.

It Make One's Mouth Hurt To Speak With Such Forced Merriment.

I'm Completely Fascinated By The Health-care Debate Going On In The United States, Especially By Posters Of Obama With A Little Mustache Drawn On His Upper Lip. Is That What Hitler Is Really Known For, His Health-care Plan? To Quote Bill Maher, "i Haven't Seen This Many Pissed-off Old White People Since They Cancelled 'murder She Wrote.'"

I'm For Gay Elopement, Not For Gay Weddings. I've Been With My Boyfriend For Twenty Years. I Don't Feel Like That Would Validate Our Relationship In Any Way. But I Would Really Fight For Someone Else To Have The Right. Just Elope, Though, Please.

Someone Told Me Something Recently About Sarah Palin, Someone I Trusted In The Book Business. They Said, "i Worked With Palin. She Did An Event At My Bookstore, And She Was Really, Really Nice, And Even More Beautiful In Person." I Didn't Want To Hear That. I Wanted To Hear That She Was Awful And Hideous-looking. But I Thought, I Have To Listen To That. I Have To Hear That. I Don't Want To Be The One Who Is Going To Deny Anything Complimentary Said About Somebody Just Because I Disagree With That Person.

Writing Helped To Have Jobs That Involved Running Around, Pushing Things Like Dish Carts And Wheelbarrows. It Would Be Hard To Sit At A Desk All Day, And Then Come To Sit At Another Desk. Also, It Helps To Abandon Hope. If I Sit At My Computer, Determined To Write A New Yorker Story I Won't Get Beyond The First Sentence. It's Better To Put No Pressure On It. What Would Happen If I Followed The Previous Sentence With This One, I'll Think. If The Eighth Draft Is Torture, The First Should Be Fun. At Least If You're Writing Humor.

Such Movies Are Always A Danger...falling In Love Is Something Most Adults Have Actually Experienced...the Theme Is Universal And Encourages...unhealthy Comparisons...why Can't Our Lives Be Like That? It's A Box Left Unopened, And Its Avoidance Explains The Continued Popularity Of Vampire Epics And Martial-arts Extravaganzas.

Falling In Love

The Korean Man Nodded, The Way You Do When You’re A Foreigner And Understand That Someone Has Finished A Sentence.

Traveling Across The United States, It's Easy To See Why Americans Are Often Thought Of As Stupid. At The San Diego Zoo, Right Near The Primate Habitats, There's A Display Featuring Half A Dozen Life-size Gorillas Made Out Of Bronze. Posted Nearby Is A Sign Reading Caution: Gorilla Statues May Be Hot. Everywhere You Turn, The Obvious Is Being Stated. Cannon May Be Loud. Moving Sidewalk Is About To End. To People Who Don't Run Around Suing One Another, Such Signs Suggest A Crippling Lack Of Intelligence.

He Looked As Though His Life Had Not Only Passed Him By But Paused Along The Way To Spit In His Face.

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.

Actually I Liked That 'let The Right One In,' That Swedish Vampire Movie.

When Someone Tell Me They Illegally Downloaded One Of My Audiobooks I Think, Thanks A Lot, Pal. When Someone Tells Me They Checked My Book Out Of The Library, I'm Delighted. I've Always Been A Big Library User, And Feel A Kinship With Others Who Do The Same Thing.

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.

I Always Knew I Wanted It To Be Illustrated.

I Like High School And College Writing Textbooks And Find Them Very Helpful. Whenever I'm Stuck And Seem To Have No Ideas, I Open One Up And Turn To The Back. There I'll Find Questions Like, "have You Had Any Experiences With An Alcoholic Or A Sailor?"

I Giggled Out Loud At His Stupidity. If Anyone Knew How To Make A Bed, It Was A Faggot.

I Didn't Know About The Rest Of The Class, But When Bastille Day Eventually Rolled Around, I Planned To Stay Home And Clean My Oven.

Weird Doors Open. People Fall Into Things.

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.

When You Read Comic Material And People Aren't Laughing How Do You Know They're Listening.

Maybe One Day, I Would Write A Story About Arguing In Public, And Those Would Come In Handy In Some Way.

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.

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.

I Was First Published In The Newspaper Put Out By School Of The Art Institute Of Chicago, Where I Was A Student. I Wince To Read That Story Nowadays, But I Published It With An Odd Photo I'd Found In A Junk Shop, And At Least I Still Like The Picture. I Had A Few Things In The School Paper, And Then I Got Published In A Small Literary Magazine. I Hoped I Would One Day Get Published In The New Yorker, But I Never Allowed Myself To Actually Believe It. Getting Published Is One Of Those Things That Feels Just As Good As You'd Hoped It Would.

In America, If Your Next-door Neighbor Has A Rolls-royce, You Want One Too. But In England, If Your Neighbor Has A Rolls-royce, You Want Him To Die In A Fiery Accident. That's A Quote From Someone Else, But There's Something About American Optimism, That Feeling You Can Do Anything If You're At Least Middle Class In America. If I Can Have A Writing Career, Anyone Can. There's Nothing Special About Me.

He's As Nutty As A Vegan T-bone.

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.

The Humor Section Is The Last Place An Author Wants To Be. They Put Your Stuff Next To Collections Of Cathy Cartoons.

I Wanted To Be A Visual Artist, But I Realized I Was More Affected By What I Read Than By What I Saw. I Would Go To A Show At A Museum And Look At A Painting And Say, 'oh I Wish I Owned That,' And That Would Be The End Of My Relationship With A Painting. With A Short Story I Would Read Or With An Author I Would Discover I Could Be Haunted. It Would Affect My Mood And Affect The Way That I Saw The World. I Thought, Wow, It Would Be Amazing To Be Able To Do That.

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?'

I Always Say To Young People, "get The Hell Out Of The United States." Especially If You're Young, Like If You're 21 Or Something. Let's Say You Don't Speak Any Italian. You're 21. Everyone's Going To Want To Sleep With You And Be Nice To You. And The Best Way To Learn A Language Is To Sleep With Someone From That Country.

“this Is Hurting Me A Lot More Than It’s Hurting You,” He Said. It Was His Standard Line, But I Knew That This Time He Was Right. Worse Than The Boil Was The Stuff That Came Out Of It. What Got To Me, And Got To Him Even Worse, Was The Stench, Which Was Unbearable, And Unlike Anything I Had Come Across Before. It Was, I Thought, What Evil Must Smell Like - Not An Evil Person But The Wicked Ideas That Have Made Him That Way. How Could A Person Continue To Live With Something So Rotten Inside? And So Much Of It!

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.

I Would Still Be Reading Out Loud. I Think That If You Are Any Kind Of An Artist, Then Validation Is Just Sort Of... It Can Be A Result, But You're Going To Do The Work Anyway. Because You're Just Wired That Way. It's So Engrained, It's Such A Part Of Your Personality That You Don't Just Stop Doing It. Eventually I'll Retire On Some Level, Eventually No One Will Want To Buy My Books Or A Ticket To See Me Read, It's Inevitable That's Going To Happe

I Tend To Write Things Seven Times Before I Show Them To My Editor. I Write Them Seven Times, Then I Take Them On Tour, Read Them Like A Dozen Times On Tour, Then Go Back To The Room And Rewrite, Read And Rewrite... I Would Never Show Him A First Draft, Because Then He's Really Going To Be Sick Of It By The Twelfth Draft.

The Trouble With Aggressive Nonsmokers Is That They Feel They Are Doing You A Favor By Not Allowing You To Smoke. They Seem To Think That One Day You'll Look Back And Thank Them For Those Precious Fifteen Seconds They Just Added To Your Life. What They Don't Understand Is That Those Are Just Fifteen More Seconds You Can Spend Hating Their Guts And Plotting Revenge.

The Woman In Charge Of Costuming Assigned Us Our Outfits And Gave Us A Lecture On Keeping Things Clean. She Held Up A Calendar And Said, "ladies, You Know What This Is. Use It. I Have Scraped Enough Blood Out From The Crotches Of Elf Knickers To Last Me The Rest Of My Life. And Don't Tell Me, 'i Don't Wear Underpants, I'm A Dancer.' You're Not A Dancer. If You Were A Real Dancer You Wouldn't Be Here. You're An Elf And You're Going To Wear Panties Like An Elf.

Anyone Who Watches Even The Slightest Amount Of Tv Is Familiar With The Scene: An Agent Knocks On The Door Of Some Seemingly Ordinary Home Or Office. The Door Opens, And The Person Holding The Knob Is Asked To Identify Himself. The Agent Then Says, "i'm Going To Ask You To Come With Me.

I Just Enjoy Lying On The Couch And Reading A Magazine.

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.

Nobody Pours Stuffing Like You Do, My Friend.

You Need To Give The Reader A Reason To Turn The Page. In A Diary, You Are Just Yourself. You Aren't Trying To Entertain. You Aren't Trying To Get Anyone To Turn The Page. I Have Over One Hundred And Fifty Six Volumes Of My Diary And I Guarantee You That If You Read Them, You'd Stop And Never Come Back.

Thank God I'm In England, Because If I Lived In Any Other Country, It'd Probably Be The Philippines. Because With Rodrigo Duterte As The Leader They Couldn't Really Give Me Attitude On Donald Trump.

My Feet Are Completely Flat, But For Most Of My Life They Were Still Shaped Like Feet. Now, Thanks To Bunions, They're Shaped More Like States, Wide Boring Ones That Nobody Wants To Drive Through.

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.

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.

The Good Thing About Being Gay, Though, I Always Believed, Is That You Didn't Make Anyone Go To A Wedding. Nobody Wants To Go To A Wedding. Nobody. It Kind Of Bothers Me Now That You Have To Go To Gay Weddings, Too. I Don't Care. It's Still A Wedding. And I Would Give Anybody Double Gifts If They Would Elope.

People Discuss Their Relationships All The Time, But You Can't. I Don't Think People Realize How Harmful That Is, How It Twists You Up To Hide Who You Are. It's Not Healthy, And The Great Gains That Homosexuals Have Made In My Lifetime, I Think That We'll Look Back In Twenty Or Thirty Years And Say, "i Can't Believe We Ever Made Them Go Through That."

A Good [short Story] Would Take Me Out Of Myself And Then Stuff Me Back In, Outsized, Now, And Uneasy With The Fit.

You Meet People Who Say, "oh, I'd Like To Do Such-and-such, But I Don't Have The Time." But It Always Seemed To Me Like You Make The Time. And If You Have A Wife Or A Job, If You Have Kids Or Whatever, You Find A Way. If You Really Want To Do It, You Make The Time.

I Don't Like Travelling If I Know I Have To Write About It.

Usually, If I Think Something Is Really Funny, It Doesn't Get Any Reaction Whatsoever.

I Think I Became A Better Writer After I Started Writing For The New Yorker. Well, I Know I Did. And Part Of It Was Having My New Yorker Editor And Part Of It Is That Was When I Started Really Going On Tour And Reading Things In Front Of An Audience 30 Times And Then Going Back In The Room And Rewriting It And Reading It And Rewriting It. So You Really Get The Rhythm Of The Sentences Down And You Really Get The Flow Down And You Get Rid Of Stuff That's Not Important.

My Family Isn't Really All That Different From Anyone Else's. Well, Maybe They're A Bit More Entertaining.

I've Always Been Very Upfront About The Way I Write, And I've Always Used The Tools Humorists Use, Such As Exaggeration.

Do I Exaggerate? Boy, Do I, And I'd Do It More If I Could Get Away With It.

I Would Start By Writing To An Adult, Maybe A High School Teacher, Or Maybe An Aunt Or Uncle, And Writing And Telling Them Why You Want To Go To A Particular University. That's Probably What You Would Actually Sound Like. Then Write Your Letter To The University, And Put Those 2 Versions In Front Of You, And Look At The Difference Between Those 2 Things.

I Don't Think My Life Is More Interesting Than Anybody Else's.

Like Any Normal Fifth Grader, I Preferred My Villains To Be Evil And Stay That Way, To Act Like Dracula Rather Than Frankenstein's Monster, Who Ruined Everything By Handing That Peasant Girl A Flower. He Sort Of Made Up For It By Drowning Her A Few Minutes Later, But, Still, You Couldn't Look At Him The Same Way Again.

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.

There Are Certain People In My Life Who Didn't Care To Be In My Book. And So I Cut Them Out. And I Had Broken Up With Somebody. And I Was, You Know, Really Upset And Depressed. And So That Was, You Know, Reasons To Keep Going.

In Other Parts Of The Country People Tried To Stay Together For The Sake Of The Children. In New York They Tried To Work Things Out For The Sake Of The Apartment.

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.

I Don't Like To Read Anything On The Radio For The Very First Time, Because I Don't Have Any Notion Of A Reaction. When I Read It Out Loud, Then I Get An Idea Of That, And More Of An Idea Of How To Read.

The Fake Slap Invariably Makes Contact, Adding The Elements Of Shock And Betrayal To What Had Previously Been Plain Old-fashioned Fear.

It Is Never Appropriate To Comment On A Woman's Breasts. I Would Never Do It On The Street Or At A Supermarket, But When I'm Sitting A Table Signing Books, Sometimes I Notice That A Woman Will Have Remarkable Breasts. And I Will Maybe Quietly Say Something About It. It's Not In A Sexual Way, Because I'm A Gay Man - I Would Never Say To A Man "great Ass" Because That Would Be Sort Of Creepy.. I Hope It's Not Creepy To Quietly Tell A Woman She Has Nice Breasts.

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 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.

States Vote To Take Away My Marriage Rights, And Even Though I Don't Want To Get Married, It Tends To Hurt My Feelings. I Guess What Bugs Me Is That It Was Put To A Vote In The First Place. If You Don't Want To Marry A Homosexual, Then Don't. But What Gives You The Right To Weigh In On Your Neighbor's Options? It's Like Voting Whether Or Not Redheads Should Be Allowed To Celebrate Christmas.

I'd Always Thought That I Understood This, But Lately I Realize That What I Call "understanding" Is Basically Just Fantasizing.

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.

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?

There Is Still The Outside World To Contend With. A World Of Backfiring Cars, And Their Human Equivalents.

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.

Paul Rudnick Is A Champion Of Truth (and Love And Great Wicked Humor) Whom We Ignore At Our Peril.

No One Reads To Hear Someone Complain About The Weather Or How Poorly Their Children Are Behaving. You Have To Give The Readers A Reason To Turn The Page. As A Writer You Have To Invite Someone To Turn The Page. And That Is A Skill You Have To Refine. That Is Why You Have To Read. You Have To Read To Learn What It Is That Makes People Turn The Page.

There's No Such Thing As A Folk Writer. There's No Such Thing As Somebody Who's Never Read A Book Before Suddenly Sitting Down One Day And Writing One. You Have To Learn How To Captivate A Reader. Right? And I Don't Mean You Have To Go To School For It. But If You're - If You Pay Attention, You Can Learn It By Reading Books. And So I Feel Like I Learned A Lot By Reading Books.

People Are Often Frightened Of Parisians, But An American In Paris Will Find No Harsher Critic Than Another American.

What's Strange Is, The People Who Want To Be In The Position Are Never Asked To Be In The Position. Like, If You Don't Want To Do Something, Then People Really Want You To Do It. And The More You Say, "no, Really, I'm Sorry, It's Really Not For Me," The More They Want To Convince You That It Is, In Fact, For You, And That You'd Be Absolutely Perfect.

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.

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.

I Had Paid For My Folly And, As A Reward, Was Invited To Take Part In The Nest Builder’s Performance Piece. The Script Was Great. ‘when I Bleat Here, Do You Want Me To Just Bleat Or To Really Let Go And “bleat, Bleat”?’ I Asked. ‘i Feel Like “bleat, Bleating,” But If Mother/destroyer Is Going To Be Crawling Through The Birth Canal Of Concertina Wire, I Don’t Want To Steal Focus, You Know What I Mean?

The Difference Between Writing Where You Know Where To Draw The Line And Writing Where You're Being Way Too Mean Is Whether You Can Tell That The Writer Is Not Talking To Family Or Friends Anymore. Generally, If You Say Something Bad About Somebody On Stage, You Need To Say Two Bad Things About Yourself. A Lot Of Times, I Think I'm The Worst Person In The Room.

A Lot Of People Don't Know What They Want, You Know, Or They're Just Kind Of Vague About It.

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 Her Muzzle Grew More White Than Brown, The Chipmunk Forgot That She And The Squirrel Had Had Nothing To Talk About. She Forgot The Definition Of "jazz" As Well And Came To Think Of It As Every Beautiful Thing She Had Ever Failed To Appreciate: The Taste Of Warm Rain; The Smell Of A Baby; The Din Of A Swollen River, Rushing Past Her Tree And Onward To Infinity.

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.

All Of A Sudden, When You're Exposed To A Large Audience, They Think You Just Started Writing That Day, But I Started Years Before. I Look Back At Things I Wrote Then And I'm So Embarrassed - The Writing Seems So Blocky And Choppy To Me And I Wouldn't Have Wanted Success Any Sooner Because The Writing Was Even Worse.

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?

The Rabbit Of Easter. He Bring Of The Chocolate.

I Spent Months Searching For Some Secret Code Before I Realized That Common Sense Has Nothing To Do With It. Hysteria, Psychosis, Torture, Depression: I Was Told That If Something Is Unpleasant It's Probably Feminine. This Encouraged Me, But The Theory Was Blown By Such Masculine Nouns As Murder, Toothache, And Rollerblade. I Have No Problem Learning The Words Themselves, It's The Sexes That Trip Me Up And Refuse To Stick.

Comfort Has Its Place, But It Seems Rude To Visit Another Country Dressed As If You’ve Come To Mow Its Lawns.

Sometimes The Sins You Haven't Committed Are All You Have Left To Hold Onto.

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.

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.

And One Of The Things I Noticed Pretty Early On In Art School Was That My Classmates Had No Notion Of An Audience. Right? I Mean, Growing Up With The Mother That I Did, I Learned That When You Walk Into The Dry Cleaners, There's An Audience Waiting For You. You Know, Maybe It's Just The Person Behind The Counter.

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.

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."

There Are Lots Of Things That Happen To Me That I Don't Write About.

I Just Looked At The Pattern Of My Life, Decided I Didn't Like It, And Changed.

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.

This Was The Consequence Of Seeing Too Much And Understanding The Horrible Truth: No One Is Safe. The World Is Not Manageable.

Whenever I Read A Passage That Moves Me, I Transcribe It In My Diary, Hoping My Fingers Might Learn What Excellence Feels Like.

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.

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

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.

I Am A Person Who Feels Guilty For Crimes I Have Not Committed, Or Have Not Committed In Years. The Police Search The Train Station For A Serial Rapist And I Cover My Face With A Newspaper, Wondering If Maybe I Did It In My Sleep. The Last Thing I Stole Was An Eight-track Tape, But To This Day I'm Unable To Enter A Store Without Feeling Like A Shoplifter. It's All The Anxiety With None Of The Free Stuff.

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.

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.

Falling In Love

I've Never Made Up Events, But I've Always Been A Big Exaggerator. It's Written On My Humorist License That I'm Allowed To Do That.

In New York I'd Go To The Movies Three Or Four Times A Week. Here I've Upped It To Six Or Seven, Mainly Because I'm Too Lazy To Do Anything Else. Fortunately, Going To The Movies Seems To Suddenly Qualify As An Intellectual Accomplishment, On A Par With Reading A Book Or Devoting Time To Serious Thought. It's Not That The Movies Have Gotten Any More Strenuous, It's Just That A Lot Of People Are As Lazy As I Am, And Together We've Agreed To Lower The Bar.

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.

... [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.

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.

The Landscape Is Best Described As 'pedestrian Hostile.' It's Pointless To Try To Take A Walk, So I Generally Just Stay In The Room And Think About Shooting Myself In The Head.

There Seemed To Be Some Correlation Between Devotion To God And A Misguided Zeal For Marshmallows.

Devotion To God

Being Locked Up Is One Thing, But To Have No Concept Of Confinement, To Be Ignorant Of Its Terms And Never Understand That Struggle Is Useless - That's What Hell Must Be Like.

As Bad A Dresser As I Am, Anything Beats Being Judged By My Character.

I Don't Like Being Left To My Own Thoughts.

I Find It Ridiculous To Assign A Gender To An Inanimate Object Incapable Of Disrobing And Making An Occasional Fool Of Itself.

Inanimate Objects

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.

Across Town, Over In The East Village, The Graffiti Was Calling For The Rich To Be Eaten, Imprisoned, Or Taxed Out Of Existence. Though It Sometimes Seemed Like A Nice Idea, I Hoped The Revolution Would Not Take Place During My Lifetime. I Didn't Want The Rich To Go Away Until I Could At Least Briefly Join Their Ranks.

Whenever I Write About My Family, I Start By Getting My Parent`s Approval. I Like To Think I Write About Them With Obvious Affection. When It Comes To The People I'm Related To, I Consider Myself To Be Very Lucky.

If I'm Stuck, I Get Up From My Chair And I Wash Windows. Or... Clean The Bathroom. Or Vacuum The Attic. There's Always Something To Be Done.

It's Unrealistic To Live Your Life Within Such Strict Parameters.

...clatter Of A Typwriter Suggests That You're Actually Building Something.

Building Something

She Said, “i’m Going To Have You Fired.” I Had Two People Say That To Me Today, “i’m Going To Have You Fired.” Go Ahead, Be My Guest. I’m Wearing A Green Velvet Costume; It Doesn’t Get Any Worse Than This. Who Do These People Think They Are? I’m Going To Have You Fired!” And I Wanted To Lean Over And Say, “i’m Going To Have You Killed.

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.

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.

Performance Is Really An Important Part Of How I Edit. I Sometimes Take Something Out Because I Realize I Put In A Joke Just To Be Funny And The Audience Laughed, But I Should Be Ashamed Of Myself. I Sometimes Take Out Sentences, Which Are Perfectly Fine On Paper, Just Because They Don't Flow When I Say Them Out Loud. I Always Read My Work Out Loud Now.

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.

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.

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.

Even As A Child I Was Fascinated By Death, Not In A Spiritual Sense, But In An Aesthetic One. A Hamster Or Guinea Pig Would Pass Away, And, After Burying The Body, I'd Dig It Back Up: Over And Over, Until All That Remained Was A Shoddy Pelt. It Earned Me A Certain Reputation, Especially When I Moved On To Other People's Pets. "igor," They Called Me. "wicked, Spooky." But I Think My Interest Was Actually Fairly Common, At Least Among Adolescent Boys. At That Age, Death Is Something That Happens Only To Animals And Grandparents, And Studying It Is Like A Science Project.

If You Read Someone Else's Diary, You Get What You Deserve.

What You Deserve

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.

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.

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.

I Like Nonfiction Books About People With Wretched Lives.

Fiction And Nonfiction

Now I Don't Drink, And I Get Up In The Morning And I Write In My Diary, And I Can Write In My Diary For Hours If I Feel Like It. And I'm Still Sober So I Can Write The Stories That I'm Working On, And I Can Sit At The Desk As Long As I Need To. So That Changed A Lot, I Think.

Art Isn't About Following The Rules. It's About Breaking Them.

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.

The Greeks Had Invented Democracy, Built The Acropolis And Called It A Day.

Sallie Mae Sounds Like A Naive And Barefoot Hillbilly Girl But In Fact They Are A Ruthless And Aggressive Conglomeration Of Bullies Located In A Tall Brick Building Somewhere In Kansas. I Picture It To Be The Tallest Building In That State And I Have Decided They Hire Their Employees Straight Out Of Prison.

It Is Funny The Things That Run Through Your Mind When You're Sitting In Your Underpants In Front Of A Pair Of Strangers.

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