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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.

-David Sedaris

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Traveling Across The United

David Sedaris

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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.

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

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

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

Because I've Always Been A Fairly Nervous Person.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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 Travelling If I Know I Have To Write About It.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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."

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

The 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

I Went From Having 50 Listeners To 50 Million Listeners.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

Inanimate Objects

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

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

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

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

Lovers Of Audio Books Learn To Live With Compromise.

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

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

The 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

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

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

Building Something

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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

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.

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

I 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.

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.

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.

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 Sometimes Read Books On My Ipad.

If I'm Riding My Bike I Just Replay The Same Scenarios Over And Over In My Head, Like I Haven't Had A New Mental Adventure Since High School. So That's What I Like About Books On Tape, So My Mind Can't Wander Anywhere.

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

I 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.

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

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.

I Can't Seem To Fathom That The Things Important To Me Are Not Important To Other People As Well, And So I Come Off Sounding Like A Missionary, Someone Whose Job It Is To Convert Rather Than Listen.

... [i] Recall Thinking That The Computer Would Never Advance Much Further Than This. Call Me Naïve, But I Seemed To Have Underestimated The Universal Desire To Sit In A Hard Plastic Chair And Stare At A Screen Until Your Eyes Cross.

I 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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'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.

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!

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.

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

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.

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."

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

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.

And When Hugh Would Grow Progressively Gandhi On Me, I'd Remind Him That These Were Pests---disease Carriers Who Feasted Upon The Dead And Then Came Indoors To Dance Upon Our Silverware.

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

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.

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

Jeremy, Good Luck On Your First Marriage.

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

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

Judge Of Character

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'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 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.

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.

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

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

This Left Me Alone To Solve The Coffee Problem - A Sort Of Catch-22, As In Order To Think Straight I Need Caffeine, And In Order To Make That Happen I Need To Think Straight.

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

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

What You Deserve

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.

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.

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

Devotion To God

Nobody Pours Stuffing Like You Do, My Friend.

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.

Weird Doors Open. People Fall Into Things.

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.

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.

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

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.

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."

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

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 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.

Boys Who Spent Their Weekends Making Banana Nut Muffins Did Not, As A Rule, Excel In The Art Of Hand-to-hand Combat.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

I Started Writing One Afternoon When I Was Twenty, And Ever Since Then I Have Written Every Day. At First I Had To Force Myself. Then It Became Part Of My Identity, And I Did It Without Thinking.

I'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.

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.

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

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

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

I've Maintained Old Friendships, Like With People I Knew In The Nineteen-seventies, But Have Lost The Knack For Meeting New People. This Has A Lot To Do With My Writing Schedule. I Don't Want To Be Disturbed, And The Willingness To Be Disturbed Is, I Think, Part Of Being A Good Friend.

The 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.

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

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?'

What Can You Say About The Family Who Is Suing The Railroad After Their Drunk Son Was Killed Walking On The Tracks? Trains Don't Normally Sneak Up On People. Unless They've Derailed, You Pretty Much Know Where To Find Them.

I 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.

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 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.

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!

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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 Like Nonfiction Books About People With Wretched Lives.

Fiction And Nonfiction

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

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.

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.

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

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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