694 Quotes by David Sedaris

Sex is what you boast about when you have exterior signs of wealth. It's a way of saying, "Look, I might no own a fancy sport coat, or even a carry-on bag, but I do have two women and all the intercourse I can handle.

A few weeks of fanfare and I'd drop show business, just like I had the guitar and my private detective agency. I hated having my life's ambition reduced to the level of a common cold. This wasn't a bug, but a full-fledged virus. It might lay low for a year or two, but this little germ would never go away. It has nothing to do with talent or initiative. Rejection couldn't weaken it, and no amount of success would ever satisfy it. Once diagnosed, the prognosis was terminal. 100

It occurred to me then that my mother was a better actor than I ever hoped to be. Acting is different that posing or pretending. When done with precision, it bears a striking resemblance to lying. Stripped of the costumes and grand gestures, it presents itself as as an unquestionable truth. 105

I'm the most important person in the lives of almost everyone I know and a good number of people I've never even met.

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.

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.

I love things made out of animals. It's just so funny to think of someone saying, "I need a letter opener. I guess I'll have to kill a deer.

I would later discover it was a bad idea to gather more than two of these people in an enclosed area for any length of time. The stage was not only a physical place but also a state of mind, and the word audience was defined as anyone forced to suffer your company. We young actors were a string of lightbulbs left burning 24 hours a day, exhausting ourselves and others with our self-proclaimed brilliance.

He's as nutty as a vegan T-bone.