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I'd always thought that I understood this, but lately I realize that what I call understanding is basically just fantasizing.

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
Call
Understanding
Thought
Fantasizing
Always
Lately
Basically
Understood
Realize
Realizing

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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.
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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.
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Everyone looks retarded once you set your mind to it.
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The fake slap invariably makes contact, adding the elements of shock and betrayal to what had previously been plain old-fashioned fear.
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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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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.
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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.
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My conscience is crosswired with my sweat glands, but there's a short in the system and I break out over things I didn't do, which only makes me look more suspect.
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Do I exaggerate? Boy, do I, and I'd do it more if I could get away with it.
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I don't think my life is more interesting than anybody else's.
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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.
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There are lots of things that happen to me that I don't write about.
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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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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.
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I see you that have a little swimming mouse
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When they're born outside, crows come and pluck their eyes out.
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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?
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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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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.
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Each one of us is left to choose our own quality of life and take pleasure where we find it with the understanding that, like Mom used to say, sooner or later something's gonna get you.
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