Quote

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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David Sedaris
Age: 67
Born: 1956
Born: December 26
Comedian
Essayist
Humorist
Writer
Binghamton
New York
David Raymond Sedaris
Think
Reader
Thinking
Cutting
Like
Interesting
Stuff
Thing
Published
Going
Anyway
Really
Thanks
Things
Burden

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Most people, or at least most of the people that I've come into contact with, would like to be written about.
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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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As bad a dresser as I am, anything beats being judged by my character.
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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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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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But I'm a humorist. I'm not a reporter, I never pretended to be a reporter.
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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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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.
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And when Hugh would grow progressively Gandhi on me, I'd remind him that these were pests---disease carriers who feasted upon the dead and then came indoors to dance upon our silverware.
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I always think it's a good policy to like the people who like you.
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Given enough time, I guess anything can look good. All it has to do is survive.
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If I were president, I would turn the tables and allow the fetus to abort its mother.
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In my dream world gay people in America would get the right to marry, and not a one of them would use that right.
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All of a sudden, when you're exposed to a large audience, they think you just started writing that day, but I started years before. I look back at things I wrote then and I'm so embarrassed - the writing seems so blocky and choppy to me and I wouldn't have wanted success any sooner because the writing was even worse.
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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.
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Lovers of audio books learn to live with compromise.
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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.
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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.
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The combination of ammonia and chloride can be lethal but I've discovered it can work miracles as long as you keep telling yourself, I want to love, I want to live.
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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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