Quote

whenever I read a passage that moves me, I transcribe it in my diary, hoping my fingers might learn what excellence feels like.

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
Feels
Moves
Like
Excellence
Whenever
Transcribe
Fingers
Diary
Read
Diaries
Learn
Passage
Moving
Passages
Might
Hoping

More quotes by David Sedaris

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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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Perhaps the little Negro girl was holding a concealed razor blade. Maybe she was one of the troublemakers out for a fresh white scalp.
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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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Lovers of audio books learn to live with compromise.
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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.
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People are often frightened of Parisians, but an American in Paris will find no harsher critic than another American.
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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.
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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.
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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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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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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.
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As a child I assumed that when I reached adulthood, I would have grown-up thoughts.
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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 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 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.
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It's safe to assume that by 2085 guns will be sold in vending machines but you won't be able to smoke anywhere in America.
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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?
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I like to reserve the right to write about whatever I like.
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there's a reason regular people don't appear on TV: we're boring.
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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?
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