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My Conscience Is Crosswired With My Sweat Glands, But There's A Short In The System And I Break Out Over Things I Didn't Do, Which Only Makes Me Look More Suspect.

-David Sedaris

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My Conscience Is Crosswired

David Sedaris

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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.

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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.

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

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

There's A Reason Regular People Don't Appear On Tv: We're Boring.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?"

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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.

But I'm A Humorist. I'm Not A Reporter, I Never Pretended To Be A Reporter.

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?

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 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.

Everyone Looks Retarded Once You Set Your Mind To It.

I Don't Worry About Being Exposed. When I'm Writing About Myself I Think About Myself As A Character. There Is A Ton Of Stuff Going On In My Life That I Don't Write About. If I Need To Write That Stuff Down, I Write About Myself In My Diary.

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.

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 Went From Having 50 Listeners To 50 Million Listeners.

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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.

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.

I Don't Really Do Very Well When I'm Sent Somewhere. A Lot Of Magazines Want To Send You Somewhere To Do Something. They Want You To Stow Away On A Ship, Or Something Like That.

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

Devotion To God

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.

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

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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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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'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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Don't Like Being Left To My Own Thoughts.

But Most Good Movies Have A Gun In 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.

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

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.

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.

Nobody Pours Stuffing Like You Do, My Friend.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

My Sister Tiffany Told Me Years Ago, 'you Can Never Write About Me.' Then She Called Six Months Ago And Said She Wanted To Be In A Story. She Was Worried People Thought I Didn't Like Her.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Rabbit Of Easter. He Bring Of The Chocolate.

The Walking Tour Guides One Through The City's Various Landmarks, Reciting Bits Of Information The Listener Might Find Enlightening. I Learned, For Example, That In The Late 1500s My Little Neighborhood Square Was A Popular Spot For Burning People Alive. Now Lined With A Row Of Small Shops, The Tradition Continues, Though In A Figurative Rather Than Literal Sense.

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

Inanimate Objects

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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?

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I've Been Keeping Diaries For 27 Years.

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

Say What You Will About The South, But In North Carolina A Hot Dog Is Free To Swing Anyway It Wishes.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

At The End Of A Miserable Day, Instead Of Grieving My Virtual Nothing, I Can Always Look At My Loaded Wastepaper Basket And Tell Myself That If I Failed, At Least I Took A Few Trees Down With Me.

I Like Nonfiction Books About People With Wretched Lives.

Fiction And Nonfiction

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Watching Him Was Like Opening The Door To A Siniging Telegram; You Know It's Supposed To Be Entertaining, But You Can't Get Beyond The Sad Fact That This Person Actually Thinks He Bringing Some Joy Into Your Life. Somewhere He Had A Mother Who Sifted Through A Shoe Box Of Mimeographed Playbills, Pouring Herself Another Drink And Wondering When Her Son Would Come To His Senses And Swallow Some Drain Cleaner.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

I Always Knew I Wanted It To Be Illustrated.

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've Never Gone On Facebook And Am Not Sure I Understand It. The Same Goes For Twitter. I Have Someone Sending Tweets And Pretending To Be Me, But I Don't Know Why.

I 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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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

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.

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.

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."

Hugh And I Have Been Together For So Long That In Order To Arouse Extraordinary Passion, We Need To Engage In Physical Combat. Once, He Hit Me On The Back Of The Head With A Broken Wineglass, And I Fell To The Floor Pretending To Be Unconscious. That Was Romantic, Or Would Have Been Had He Rushed To My Side Rather Than Stepping Over My Body To Fetch The Dustpan.

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.

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.

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

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.'"

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Often I'd Take Out My Magnifying Glass And Stare Into The Chaos That Was Her Face.

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.

In Paris You're Always Surrounded By French People.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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