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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: 68
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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But instead I am applying for a job as an elf. Even worse than applying is the very real possibility that I will not be hired, that I couldn't even find work as an elf. That's when you know you're a failure.
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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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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You can't brace yourself for famine if you've never known hunger.
David Sedaris
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I don't worry about being exposed. When I'm writing about myself I think about myself as a character. There is a ton of stuff going on in my life that I don't write about. If I need to write that stuff down, I write about myself in my diary.
David Sedaris
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If I were president, I would turn the tables and allow the fetus to abort its mother.
David Sedaris
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If I'm stuck, I get up from my chair and I wash windows. Or... clean the bathroom. Or vacuum the attic. There's always something to be done.
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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I've maintained old friendships, like with people I knew in the nineteen-seventies, but have lost the knack for meeting new people. This has a lot to do with my writing schedule. I don't want to be disturbed, and the willingness to be disturbed is, I think, part of being a good friend.
David Sedaris
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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.
David Sedaris
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It was my friend Frank, a writer in San Francisco, who finally set me straight. When asked about my new look he put down his fork and stared at me for a few moments. A bow tie announces to the world you can no longer get an erection.
David Sedaris
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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.
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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Whenever I write about my family, I start by getting my parent`s approval. I like to think I write about them with obvious affection. When it comes to the people I'm related to, I consider myself to be very lucky.
David Sedaris
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I like to reserve the right to write about whatever I like.
David Sedaris
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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.
David Sedaris
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To spend your days in the company of naked men - that was the life for me. 'Turn a bit to the left, Jean-Claude. I long to capture the playful quality of your buttocks.
David Sedaris
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Do I exaggerate? Boy, do I, and I'd do it more if I could get away with it.
David Sedaris
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I started writing when I was twenty, and my first book came out seventeen years later.
David Sedaris
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Maybe one day, I would write a story about arguing in public, and those would come in handy in some way.
David Sedaris