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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.

-David Sedaris

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I Think I Became

David Sedaris

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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.

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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.

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

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.

Right, I Breast Feed Baby Camels In My Backyard Just For The Freaking Fun Of It. Just Tell Me Where You Live, Pinocchio, And Save The Baloney For Lunch.

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.

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.

Jeremy, Good Luck On Your First Marriage.

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.

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.

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.

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

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."

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.

Remember That The Most Important Thing Is To Try And Love Other People As Much As They Love You.

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'm Not Afraid To Write About Madness. I Always Figure That Whatever Most Embarrasses You Is Something That Everyone Can Relate To, Really...because We're Just Not That Different. So If You Think, 'oh My God, This Is So Embarrassing. I Can't Possibly Talk About That,' And You Write About It, The Audience Is Gonna Be Like, 'that Happened To Me!

I Would Be Writing And Trying To Write Like Joan Didion. Or If I Was Reading Raymond Carver. You Know, Strong Stylists. But That's How You Find Your Voice, Is Imitating Other People. So Things Like That Didn't Embarrass Me, Because I Thought, Well, That's How It Goes. That's How Everyone Learns.

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.

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?

The Rabbit Of Easter. He Bring Of The Chocolate.

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.

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

“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!

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!

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.

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

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?

The Good Thing About England - Like, If I Were In France, All People Would Be Doing Is Rubbing My Nose In Donald Trump. As If I Voted For Him. Just Rubbing My Nose In Him. And In England, They'd Be Rubbing My Nose In It Too, Except For Brexit. So That Means They Can't Rub My Nose In Anything!

Famous People Like To Choose Friends Who Won't Go Around Repeating Their Conversations And Details About Them.

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.

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

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 Think It's Good To Have The Alone Time. Well, I Kind Of Have To, Because I Have To Be Alone In Order To Work, So I Have Alone Time. And Then I Go On Tour And I Have Being-around-people Time.

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

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.

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.

Everyone Looks Retarded Once You Set Your Mind To It.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Went From Having 50 Listeners To 50 Million Listeners.

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

I Like Nonfiction Books About People With Wretched Lives.

Fiction And Nonfiction

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I've Wasted A Lot Of Time Pretending To Be Interested In People Who Weren't Terribly Interesting.

I've Been Keeping Diaries For 27 Years.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Perhaps The Little Negro Girl Was Holding A Concealed Razor Blade. Maybe She Was One Of The Troublemakers Out For A Fresh White Scalp.

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.

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.

It Hardly Seemed Fair, Because, Unlike A Horse Or A Seeing Eye Dog, The Whole Glory Of Being A Bird Is That Nobody Would Ever Put You To Work.

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 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?

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.

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

Scream At The Mangled Leather Carcass Lying At The Foot Of The Stairs, And My Parents Would Roar With Laughter. "that's What You Get For Leaving Your Wallet On The Kitchen Table.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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?"

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Lovers Of Audio Books Learn To Live With Compromise.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 Just Think That The People Who Say: 'that's Not True' When Someone Tells A Story At Dinner Are The People Who Didn't Get Any Laughs When They Told Their Story.

I'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.'"

Because I've Always Been A Fairly Nervous Person.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Judge Of Character

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 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

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

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.

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.

On One Tour, I Was Collecting Stories About Pet Monkeys. You'd Be Surprised How Many People Have Stories About Monkeys. The Problem Is, Most Monkey Stories End Tragically.

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?

I'm So Old That When I Started Keeping A Diary They Were In Actual Books, And I Think That's One The Reasons That I've Never Written About Sex. Because Early On You Had To Worry That Someone Was Going To Find Your Diary, So It's Bad Enough To Be Writing Like Joan Didion, But Writing Like Joan Didion About Sex Acts You'd Performed With Somebody You Had Known For 20 Minutes, That's A Bit Worse. So I Would Write In My Diary, "i Met J. And We Had Sex Five Times Last Night." But I Would Never Write About What We Did.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

In Paris You're Always Surrounded By French People.

Snowball Just Leads Elves On, Elves And Santas. He Is Playing A Dangerous Game.

The Only Real Advice You Can Give Anyone Is To Keep Writing.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

High School Taught Me A Valuable Lesson About Glasses: Don't Wear Them. Contacts Have Always Seemed Like Too Much Work, So Instead I Just Squint, Figuring That If Something Is More Than Ten Feet Away, I'll Just Deal With It When I Get There.

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

Inanimate Objects

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

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.

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

Devotion To God

It's A Common Mistake For Vacationing Americans To Assume That Everyone Around Them Is French And Therefore Speaks No English Whatsoever. [...] An Experienced Traveler Could Have Told By Looking At My Shoes That I Wasn't French. And Even If I Were French, It's Not As If English Is Some Mysterious Tribal Dialect Spoken Only By Anthropologists And A Small Population Of Cannibals.

Most People, Or At Least Most Of The People That I've Come Into Contact With, Would Like To Be Written About.

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."

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.

Real Love Amounts To Withholding The Truth, Even When You're Offered The Perfect Opportunity To Hurt Someone's Feelings.

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

Einstein Wrote That Insanity Is Doing The Same Thing Over And Over And Expecting A Different Result. That Said, Is It Crazier To Repeatedly Throw Yourself Against A Window, Or To Repeatedly Open That Window, Believing The Creatures That Are Throwing Themselves Against It Might Come Into Your House, Take A Look Around, And Leave With No Hard Feelings?

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.

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.

..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

I Always Knew I Wanted It To Be Illustrated.

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.

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.

At First, Writing For The New Yorker Was Very Scary To Me. I Couldn't Imagine Anything That I Would Write In That Typeface.

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

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.

It's Funny How Certain Objects Convey A Message - My Washer And Dryer, For Example. They Can't Speak, Of Course, But Whenever I Pass Them They Remind Me That I'm Doing Fairly Well. "no More Laundromat For You," They Hum. My Stove, A Downer, Tells Me Every Day That I Can't Cook, And Before I Can Defend Myself My Scale Jumps In, Shouting From The Bathroom, "well, He Must Be Doing _something - _my Numbers Is Off The Charts." The Skeleton Has A Much More Limited Vocabulary, And Says Only One Thing: "you Are Going To Die."

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

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.

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

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

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.

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 I Do Is Lie, And That Has Made Me Immune To Compliments.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

I’d Always Been Afraid Of Sick People, And So Had My Mother. It Wasn’t That We Feared Catching Their Brain Aneurysm Or Accidentally Ripping Out Their Iv. I Think It Was Their Fortitude That Frightened Us. Sick People Reminded Us Not Of What We Had, But Of What We Lacked. Everything We Said Sounded Petty And Insignificant; Our Complaints Paled In The Face Of Theirs, And Without Our Complaints, There Was Nothing To Say.

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