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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.

-David Sedaris

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Writing Helped To Have

David Sedaris

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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.

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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 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.

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

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

It's Odd The Things That People Remember. Parents Will Arrange A Birthday Party, Certain It Will Stick In Your Mind Forever. You'll Have A Nice Time, Then Two Years Later You'll Be Like, 'there Was A Pony There? Really? And A Clown With One Leg?'

Because I've Always Been A Fairly Nervous Person.

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

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

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

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

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 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.'"

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."

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.

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.

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.

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

Devotion To God

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.

On A Busy Day Twenty-two Thousand People Come To Visit Santa, And I Was Told That It Is An Elf's Lot To Remain Merry In The Face Of Torment And Adversity. I Promised To Keep That In Mind.

I 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.

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

I Sometimes Read Books On My Ipad.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

I'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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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?

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.

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!

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

Weird Doors Open. People Fall Into Things.

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.

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

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

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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.

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

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 Unrealistic To Live Your Life Within Such Strict Parameters.

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

Everyone Looks Retarded Once You Set Your Mind To 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.

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.

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When Asked "what Do We Need To Learn This For?" Any High-school Teacher Can Confidently Answer That, Regardless Of The Subject, The Knowledge Will Come In Handy Once The Student Hits Middle Age And Starts Working Crossword Puzzles In Order To Stave Off The Terrible Loneliness.

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.

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.

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

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.

Most Movies, I Forget About Them While I'm Watching Them. I Go Every Single Day. But I've Never Thought About Participating In Any Way. It's Like Being At Home All Day. It Was Never A Goal To Me.

The Rabbit Of Easter. He Bring Of The Chocolate.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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 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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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'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!

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

In Paris You're Always Surrounded By French People.

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.

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

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.

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

I've Been Keeping Diaries For 27 Years.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

When I Taught, A Lot Of My Students Weren't Big Readers, So They Would Write Something And I Realized That They Thought It Belonged In A Book. Like, They Didn't Know What The Inside Of A Book Looked Like, You Know What I Mean?

I 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.

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 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.

But Most Good Movies Have A Gun In Them.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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 See You That Have A Little Swimming Mouse

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

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

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.

Like Anyone Nostalgic For A Time He Didn't Live Through, I Chose To Weed Out The Little Inconveniences: Polio, Say, Or The Thought Of Eating Stewed Squirrel. The World Was Simply Grander Back Then, Somehow More Civilized, And Nicer To Look At.

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.

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'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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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."

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.

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.

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 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.

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

I Went From Having 50 Listeners To 50 Million Listeners.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Nobody Pours Stuffing Like You Do, My Friend.

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

I Wish That I Had Re-edited 'theft By Finding' After I Did The Audio. Because The Audio Took 40 Hours In The Studio, And I Was Standing On My Feet. So Toward The End Of It I'd Be Looking At Certain Diary Entries And I Would Think, "is This Really Worth My Time To Read This Out Loud?" And I Would Think, "no, It Is Not." I Would Have Cut Out 75 Pages, Just Because I Was Tired Of Standing Up.

The 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."

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 Knew I Wanted It To Be Illustrated.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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 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."

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

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

I'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.

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

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.

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

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

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