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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

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Cover Your Glass In

David Sedaris

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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?

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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 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.

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Falling In Love

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

Amy Adored Both The New Look And The New Person It Allowed Her To Be. Following The Photo Shoot, She Wore Her Bruises To The Dry Cleaner And The Grocery Store. Most People Nervously Looked Away, But On The Rare Occasions Someone Would Ask What Happened, My Sister Would Smile As Brightly As Possible, Saying, 'i'm In Love. Can You Believe It? I'm Finally, Totally In Love, And I Feel Great.

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

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.

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.

In My Dream World Gay People In America Would Get The Right To Marry, And Not A One Of Them Would Use That Right.

To Say That A Humorist Exaggerates To Get Big Laughs, I Don't See How That's Big News.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?'

In Japanese And Italian, The Response To ["how Are You?"] Is "i'm Fine, And You?" In German It's Answered With A Sigh And A Slight Pause, Followed By "not So Good.

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

What You Deserve

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.

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

As A Foreigner In London, I Like That There Are So Many Other Foreigners.

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

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?

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

You Know, When You Need Drugs And You Don't Have A Lot Of Money, What You'll Do Is You'll Hang Out With People Who Will Give You Drugs. Right?

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.

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 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'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.

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.

If I Were President, I Would Turn The Tables And Allow The Fetus To Abort Its Mother.

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

“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!

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

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.

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Write Relentlessly, Until You Find Your Voice. Then, Use It.

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 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.

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..she Took Pictures Of Germs, Viruses, And People Reacting To Germs And Viruses. On Weekends, For Extra Money, She Photographed Weddings, Which Really Wasn't That Much Of A Stretch

But Most Good Movies Have A Gun In Them.

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They're Hungry For Something They Know Nothing About, But We, We Know All Too Well That The Price Of Fame Is The Loss Of Privacy.

I Started Writing When I Was Twenty, And My First Book Came Out Seventeen Years Later.

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If You Aren't Cute, You May As Well Be Clever.

I Like To Reserve The Right To Write About Whatever I Like.

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.

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!

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.

A History Of Listening To Top 40 Radio Had Left Me With A Ridiculous And Clichéd Notion Of Love. I Had Never Entertained The Feeling Myself But Knew That It Meant Never Having To Say You're Sorry. It Was A Many-splendored Thing. Love Was A Rose And A Hammer. Both Blind And All-seeing, It Made The World Go Round.

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

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.

When You Go To That Other Country You Realize That In France And In England, You Don't Ask Somebody What They Do For A Living When You Meet Someone. A Lot Of The Obvious Things, The Shortcuts We Take In America - In America You Can Talk About Money All You Want. You Can Ask How Much They Make, Rent They Pay, How Much Their House Costs And How Much Their Car Costs, And They'll Feel Comfortable Telling You. But It's Scandalous To Ask Anyone In England Or France A Question Like That.

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

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.

I Meet People At Book Signings. My Record Now, For Signing, Is Ten And A Half Hours In One Sitting.

I'm Glad That I Didn't Have The Internet When I Started Writing. I Started Writing When I Was 20 And Didn't Show A Word Of It To Anyone Until I Was 28. I Had The Sense To Keep It To Myself. Now The Temptation With Blogs And Such, They're Just Getting It Out There; Maybe It Would Have Been Best To Keep It To Themselves.

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

She's Afraid To Tell Me Anything Important, Knowing I'll Only Turn Around And Write About It. In My Mind, I'm Like A Friendly Junkman, Building Things From The Little Pieces Of Scrap I Find Here And There, But My Family's Started To See Things Differently. Their Personal Lives Are The So-called Pieces Of Scrap I So Casually Pick Up, And They're Sick Of It. More And More Often Their Stories Begin With The Line "you Have To Swear You'll Never Repeat This." I Always Promise, But It's Generally Understood That My Word Means Nothing.

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

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

Building Something

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.

God Was Someone I Wound Up Turning Over And Over In My Mind Each Night... Was He Punishing Me With This Meal Or Was He Rewarding Me? Did He Actively Watch Me Or Take Me For Granted Like A Fish You Don't Notice Until It's Floating On The Surface Of The Tank?

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.

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

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 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.

In Books And Movies Infidelity Always Looks So Compelling, So Right. Here Are People Who Defy Petty Convention And Are Rewarded With Only The Tastiest Bits Of Human Experience.

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.

But I Don't Distinguish Between Being Laughed With, And Laughed At. I'll Take Either.

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.

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.

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

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.

As A Child I Assumed That When I Reached Adulthood, I Would Have Grown-up Thoughts.

The Difference Between The First Time I Read Something And The Tenth Time I Read Something Is Generally Pretty Profound. Even If The Script Is The Same, Just The Way That I Read It Is Different.

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.

I've Been Keeping Diaries For 27 Years.

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

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.

Like All Of My Friends, She's A Lousy Judge Of Character.

Judge Of Character

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

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.

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.

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.

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 Sometimes Read Books On My Ipad.

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.

Jeremy, Good Luck On Your First Marriage.

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

When They're Born Outside, Crows Come And Pluck Their Eyes Out.

I Always Knew I Wanted It To Be Illustrated.

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.

Given Enough Time, I Guess Anything Can Look Good. All It Has To Do Is Survive.

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.

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.

At The Morgue, People Were So Desensitized That They Would Eat Lunch In The Glass Walled Room Adjacent To The Autopsy Room. A Viewing Room. Because It Had The Best Air Conditioning In The Building. So They Would Eat In There And Maybe Somebody Would Come In Who Had Been Found After Being Dead For Three Days And They Would Say: That Is The Exact Purple I Want For Those Drapes In The Study. They Didn't Miss A Beat. They Could Eat Through Anything.

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.

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.

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'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.

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."

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.

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

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.

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.

I Like The Trail That The Internet Created. For Example, I Was Watching One Of Those Douglas Sirk Movies, And I Noticed That Rock Hudson Towered Over Everyone, And I Typed In "how Tall Was" And I Saw "how Tall Was Jesus," And I'm Like, "sure," And Half An Hour Later You're Somewhere You Didn't Expect To Be. It Doesn't Work That Same Way In Books, Does It? Even If You Have An Encyclopedia, The Trail Isn't That Crazy. I Like That Aspect Of It.

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'm Friends With A Lot Of Writers And So Many Of Them Say How Much They Hate Signings And How They Leave After A Certain Period Of Time. But What Is So Hard About Sitting There While People Tell You How Much They Love You? And If You Don't Like It, Well, Learn To Like It. I Try To Take One Person At A Time. I Never Look Down The Line To See How Many More People Are Left. And I Always Try To Make People Talk About Something Besides Whatever They Planned To Say.

But I Have No Mind For Business And Considered Staying Awake To Be Enough Of An Accomplishment.

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.

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.

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.

After The Trial, I Watched As Another Female Pathologist Collected Maggots From A Spinal Column Found In The Desert. There Was A Decomposed Head, Too, And Before Leaving Work She Planned To Simmer It And Study The Exposed Cranium For Contusions. I Was Asked To Pass This Information Along To The Chief Medical Examiner, And, Looking Back, I Perhaps Should Have Chosen My Words More Carefully. 'fire Up The Kettle,' I Told Him. 'ol'-fashioned Skull Boil At Five P.m.

I Went From Having 50 Listeners To 50 Million Listeners.

I Don't Write About Sex Because It's Not Really My Subject. I Love It When Other People Write About It, But It's Not My Subject, And I Don't Want Anyone I've Had Sex With To Write About It. Plus, You're In Front Of An Audience, And They Picture Wherever You're Writing About. I'm 52; No One In The Audience Wants To Picture That.

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 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.

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

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.

I Guess My Guilty Pleasure Would Be Listening To The British Audio Versions Of The 'harry Potter' Books.

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

Weird Doors Open. People Fall Into Things.

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.

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.

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.

If You Are Any Kind Of An Artist, Then Validation . . . Can Be A Result, But You're Going To Do The Work Anyway.

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."

But Instead I Am Applying For A Job As An Elf. Even Worse Than Applying Is The Very Real Possibility That I Will Not Be Hired, That I Couldn't Even Find Work As An Elf. That's When You Know You're A Failure.

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.

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.

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.

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

In Paris You're Always Surrounded By French People.

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.

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 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?"

My Sister's The Type Who Religiously Watches The Fear Segments Of Her Local Eyewitness News Broadcasts, Retaining Nothing But The Headline...everything Is Dangerous All Of The Time, And If It's Not Yet Been Pulled Off The Shelves, Then It's Certainly Under Investigation -- So There.

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.

You Can't Brace Yourself For Famine If You've Never Known Hunger.

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.

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

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.

It Can Take Years. With The First Draft, I Just Write Everything. With The Second Draft, It Becomes So Depressing For Me, Because I Realize That I Was Fooled Into Thinking I'd Written The Story. I Hadn't-i Had Just Typed For A Long Time. So Then I Have To Carve Out A Story From The 25 Or So Pages. It's In There Somewhere-but I Have To Find It. I'll Then Write A Third, Fourth, And Fifth Draft, And So On.

I Don't Think I'm A Witty Person. To Me, A Witty Person Is A Funny Person Who Is Also A Smart Person. My Friend David Rakoff, Who Died A Few Years Ago, He Was A Witty Person. Fran Lebowitz Is A Witty Person. I Don't Think There Are That Many Witty People Around, So You Tend To Notice Them When They Do Come Around. I Don't Consider Myself To Be That.

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.

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.

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.

Oh, For Christ's Sake,' I Hear. 'can We Please Just Try To Have A Good Time?' This Is Like Ordering Someone To Find You Attractive, And It Doesn't Work. I've Tried It.

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.

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

I've Often Lost Faith In Myself, I've Never Lost It In My Family.

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.

College Is The Best Thing That Can Ever Happen To You," My Father Used To Say, And He Was Right, For It Was There That I Discovered Drugs, Drinking, And Smoking.

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.

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.

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?

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.

If You Stepped Out Of The Shower And Saw A Leprechaun Standing At The Base Of Your Toilet, Would You Scream, Or Would You Innately Understand That He Meant You No Harm?

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

I See You That Have A Little Swimming Mouse

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.

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.

There’s A Lot I Don’t Tell My Father When He Calls Asking After Amy. He Wouldn’t Understand That She Has No Interest In Getting Married And Was, In Fact, Quite Happy To Break Up With Her Live-in Boyfriend, Whom She Replaced With An Imaginary Boyfriend Named Ricky. The Last Time She Was Asked Out By A Successful Bachelor, Amy Hesitated Before Saying, ‘thanks For Asking, But I’m Really Not Into White Guys Right Now.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I'm Not A Reporter But The 'new Yorker' Treats Everyone Like A Reporter.

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.

I Like Books On Tape, And Will Listen To Just About Anything.

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.

There Is A Reason There Is No Such Thing As A Folk Writer. But To Be A Writer You Have Learn What It Takes To Captivate A Reader In Order To Make Them Turn The Page. And In Order To Learn That, You Have To Read.

I Was Just Struggling With My Inner Vachette And Pondering The Depths Of My Own Inhumanity.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Devotion To God

I Never Got The Idea Of A Punishing God, Just A Really Boring One. To See People Growing Up In The Carolinas Who Were Baptist, I Knew There Were Others Who Felt God Was Going To Send Them To Hell For Any Little Thing, But Not Me.

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.

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.

The Things I've Bought From Strangers In The Dark Would Curl Your Hair.

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.

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

I Like Nonfiction Books About People With Wretched Lives.

Fiction And Nonfiction

As I Searched The Atlas For Somewhere To Run To, Hugh Made A Case For His Old Stomping Grounds. His First Suggestion Was Beirut, Where He Went To Nursery School. His Family Left There In The Midsixties And Moved To The Congo. After That, It Was Ethiopia, And Then Somalia, All Fine Places In His Opinion. 'let's Save Africa And The Middle East For When I Decide To Quit Living,' I Said.

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.

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.

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