Quote

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.

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
Italian
Slight
Response
Pause
Fine
Pauses
Good
Sigh
Japanese
Answered
German
Followed

More quotes by David Sedaris

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I went from having 50 listeners to 50 million listeners.
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He looked as though his life had not only passed him by but paused along the way to spit in his face.
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Oh, for Christ's sake,' I hear. 'Can we please just try to have a good time?' This is like ordering someone to find you attractive, and it doesn't work. I've tried it.
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If finding an apartment is like falling in love, buying one is like proposing on your first date and agreeing not to see each other until the wedding.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I always used to reach for the cigarette when the phone rang, and I figured nobody would ever call me in Tokyo. The time difference is so profound it's, like, already September in Tokyo, and I figured nobody would be able to work it out.
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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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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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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.
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I won't put in a load of laundry, because the machine is too loud and would drown out other, more significant noises - namely, the shuffling footsteps of the living dead.
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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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Of course, the diary helps me as well. 'That wasn't your position on July 7, 1991,' I'll remind Hugh an hour after we've had a fight. I'd have loved to rebut him sooner, but it takes awhile to look these things up.
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No one writes dialect better than Flannery O'Connor. No one should even try.
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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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If you aren't cute, you may as well be clever.
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I always think it's a good policy to like the people who like you.
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I'm not a reporter but the 'New Yorker' treats everyone like a reporter.
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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.
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