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Art isn't about following the rules. It's about breaking them.

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
Breaking
Following
Rules
Art

More quotes by David Sedaris

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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.
David Sedaris
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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.
David Sedaris
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No one writes dialect better than Flannery O'Connor. No one should even try.
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.
David Sedaris
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Because I've always been a fairly nervous person.
David Sedaris
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I've been keeping a diary for thirty-three years and write in it every morning. Most of it's just whining, but every so often there'll be something I can use later: a joke, a description, a quote. It's an invaluable aid when it comes to winning arguments. 'That's not what you said on February 3, 1996,' I'll say to someone.
David Sedaris
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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.
David Sedaris
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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.
David Sedaris
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I'm not afraid to write about madness. I always figure that whatever most embarrasses you is something that everyone can relate to, really...because we're just not that different. So if you think, 'Oh my god, this is so embarrassing. I can't possibly talk about that,' and you write about it, the audience is gonna be like, 'that happened to me!
David Sedaris
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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.
David Sedaris
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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.
David Sedaris
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Paul Rudnick is a champion of truth (and love and great wicked humor) whom we ignore at our peril.
David Sedaris
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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?
David Sedaris
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They were nothing like the French people I had imagined. If anything, they were too kind, too generous and too knowledgable in the fields of plumbing and electricity.
David Sedaris
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I'm glad that I didn't have the Internet when I started writing. I started writing when I was 20 and didn't show a word of it to anyone until I was 28. I had the sense to keep it to myself. Now the temptation with blogs and such, they're just getting it out there maybe it would have been best to keep it to themselves.
David Sedaris
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I tend to write things seven times before I show them to my editor. I write them seven times, then I take them on tour, read them like a dozen times on tour, then go back to the room and rewrite, read and rewrite... I would never show him a first draft, because then he's really going to be sick of it by the twelfth draft.
David Sedaris
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Also, I used to think that one day I might get someone to iron my shirts, but the truth is I really like doing them myself.
David Sedaris
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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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Sometimes you read something and it's just -- it doesn't invite a reader....Sometimes you read something and it's not saying, 'oh come in, come in have a seat. I'm going to tell you what happened.' Perhaps my writing comes off as conversational...and that takes effort.
David Sedaris
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There is a reason there is no such thing as a folk writer. But to be a writer you have learn what it takes to captivate a reader in order to make them turn the page. And in order to learn that, you have to read.
David Sedaris