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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.

David Sedaris

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David Sedaris
Age: 67
Born: 1956
Born: December 26
Comedian
Essayist
Humorist
Writer
Binghamton
New York
David Raymond Sedaris
Well
Listen
Important
Seem
Things
Rather
Like
Jobs
Fathom
People
Someone
Sounding
Seems
Convert
Wells
Missionary
Come
Whose

More quotes by David Sedaris

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If I were president, I would turn the tables and allow the fetus to abort its mother.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It is funny the things that run through your mind when you're sitting in your underpants in front of a pair of strangers.
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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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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.
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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.
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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?
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I always knew I wanted it to be illustrated.
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But I'm a humorist. I'm not a reporter, I never pretended to be a reporter.
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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.
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You know, when you need drugs and you don't have a lot of money, what you'll do is you'll hang out with people who will give you drugs. Right?
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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.
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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.
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I went from having 50 listeners to 50 million listeners.
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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.
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What other people call dark and despairing, I call funny.
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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.
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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.
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