91+ David Sedaris Quotes From The Humorist, Author, And Comedian

Srija Chanda
Dec 12, 2023 By Srija Chanda
Originally Published on Mar 13, 2021
Edited by Isobel Murphy
Microphone and stool on a stand up comedy stage with reflectors ray
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Age: 0-99
Read time: 11.8 Min

David Sedaris a famous American author, humorist, comedian, and radio personality.

He first gained widespread fame when his essay 'Santaland Diaries' was broadcasted on public radio. Subsequently, he has released several books including 'Naked' and 'Me Talk Pretty One Day' which have been well-received by the public.

So, without any further delay let us take a look at some of the favorite David Sedaris quotes from his books like 'Naked', including some David Sedaris love quotes.

If you like these David Sedaris quotes, you may also like these satirist quotes and Charles Schulz quotes.

Awesome David Sedaris Quotes

These David Sedaris quotes will never fail to amaze you.

1. "I haven't got the slightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out."

- David Sedaris.

2. "If I could believe in myself, why not give other improbabilities the benefit of the doubt?"

- David Sedaris.

3. "I am a person who feels guilty for crimes I have not committed, or have not committed in years."

- David Sedaris.

4. "You need to be in the world and you need to be engaged with the world."

- David Sedaris.

5. "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."

- David Sedaris.

6. "A good [short story] would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit."

- David Sedaris.

7. "I just looked at the pattern of my life, decided I didn't like it, and changed."

- David Sedaris.

8. "We can't profess love without talking through hand puppets, and we'd never consciously sit down to discuss our relationship."

- David Sedaris.

9. "'The End Of The Affair' made me look like an absolute toad."

- David Sedaris.

10. "You can’t write unless you read."

- David Sedaris.

11. "Real love amounts to withholding the truth, even when you're offered the perfect opportunity to hurt someone's feelings."

- David Sedaris.

12. "Write relentlessly, until you find your voice. Then, use it."

- David Sedaris.

13. "Looking back, I should have known better than to accompany Hugh [Hamrick] to a love story."

- David Sedaris.

14. "I don't think my life is more interesting than anybody else's."

- David Sedaris.

15. "I don't see myself moving back [to USA]. It's not that I hate the United States. I just always thought it would be a shame not to live in a foreign country."

- David Sedaris.

16. "If you read someone else's diary, you get what you deserve."

- David Sedaris.

17. "People write for different reasons. For me, it’s a compulsion."

- David Sedaris.

18. "As a child I assumed that when I reached adulthood, I would have grown-up thoughts."

- David Sedaris.

19. "When the audience laughs, I make notes. And when the audience coughs, it’s like they’re throwing skulls at you."

- David Sedaris.

20. "The last thing I stole was an eight-track tape, but to this day I'm unable to enter a store without feeling like a shoplifter. It's all the anxiety with none of the free stuff."

- David Sedaris.

21. "Most people, or at least most of the people that I've come into contact with, would like to be written about."

- David Sedaris.

22. "My family isn't really all that different from anyone else's. Well, maybe they're a bit more entertaining."

- David Sedaris.

23. "I'm the most important person in the lives of almost everyone I know and a good number of the people I've never even met."

- David Sedaris.

24. "When I'm writing about people I know, I'm trying to celebrate them to the best of my ability."

- David Sedaris.

25. "I tend to write things seven times before I show them to my editor."

- David Sedaris.

The Best David Sedaris Quotes

Opened books stacked up in library

Take a look at some David Sedaris quotes that are simply the best here.

26. "Most of what I know I learned by going to people’s readings and by taking part in readings."

- David Sedaris.

27. "Sometimes the sins you haven't committed are all you have left to hold onto."

- David Sedaris.

28. "This was the consequence of seeing too much and understanding the horrible truth: No one is safe. The world is not manageable."

- David Sedaris.

29. "Equally exciting would be the work involved in overcoming that helplessness. There would be a goal involved, and I like having goals."

- David Sedaris.

30. "Weird doors open. People fall into things."

- David Sedaris.

31. "I went from having 50 listeners to 50 million listeners."

- David Sedaris.

32. "I like the trail that the Internet created."

- David Sedaris.

33. "If you talk to people, you can have whatever you want."

- David Sedaris.

34. "A person doesn't consciously choose what he focuses on. Those things choose you, and, once they do, nothing, it seems, can shake them."

- David Sedaris.

35. "Something has changed, and now, when I look at my students, I see only people who are going to eat up my time!"

- David Sedaris.

36. "Remember that the most important thing is to try and love other people as much as they love you."

- David Sedaris.

37. "I met a young woman the other day, and she said, what advice would you have for a writer, and I said it would be to work every day... Your job is to write. The rest of it will take care of itself."

- David Sedaris.

38. "You can't brace yourself for famine if you've never known hunger."

- David Sedaris.

39. "I like listening to books as well, as that way you can iron at the same time."

- David Sedaris.

40. "Love was a rose and a hammer. Both blind and all-seeing, it made the world go round."

- David Sedaris.

41. "I find it ridiculous to assign a gender to an inanimate object incapable of disrobing and making an occasional fool of itself."

- David Sedaris.

42. "Given enough time, I guess anything can look good. All it has to do is survive."

- David Sedaris.

43. "What other people call dark and despairing, I call funny."

- David Sedaris.

44. "A broken heart is a rite of passage and, looking back, I must have wanted one pretty badly."

- David Sedaris.

45. "All of us take pride and pleasure in the fact that we are unique, but I'm afraid that when all is said and done the police are right: it all comes down to fingerprints."

- David Sedaris.

46. "Because I was lazy, I'd adopted the philosophy that things just happen."

- David Sedaris.

47. "I cry all the time when I watch 'Glee' because I don't know if it's satire or melodrama and that makes me feel like the writing is aware of itself, and that makes it okay to cry."

- David Sedaris.

48. "Most people would have found it grotesque, but when you're in love nothing is so abstract or horrible that it can't be thought of as cute."

- David Sedaris.

49. "I always think it's a good policy to like the people who like you."

- David Sedaris

50. "At the end of the night I’ll lay my story out on the hotel bed and look at my notes, and I’ll notice the flow of the laughter."

- David Sedaris.

Awesome David Sedaris 'Me Talk Pretty One Day' Quotes

Here are some remarkable David Sedaris quotes from his book 'Me Talk Pretty One Day'.

51. "My ideas would be like demons rushing from a hellish cave, and my fellow intellectuals, startled by the truth and enormity of my observations, would try to bottle them up before they spread!"

- David Sedaris.

52. "Simple, stupid, brutal curiosity, the same thing that motivates boys to see what flies might look like without their wings!"

- David Sedaris.

53. "Time doesn't fly — it flaps, the numbers turning on a wheel that operates much like the gears on a stretching rack."

- David Sedaris.

54. "With the money I make from my numerous inventions, I build my own spaceship and discover another planet that looks a lot like Earth and is only twenty minutes away."

- David Sedaris.

55."Much work and someday you talk pretty. People start love you soon. Maybe tomorrow, okay."

- David Sedaris.

56. "The message was that if something is free, you should only take the best. If, on the other hand, you're forced to pay, it's best to lower the bar and not be so choosy."

- David Sedaris.

57. "I had never gone to graduate school, and although several of my stories had been Xeroxed and stapled, none of them had ever been published in the traditional sense of the word."

- David Sedaris.

58. "Doubt was spreading through the room like the cold germs seen in one of those slow-motion close-ups of a sneeze."

- David Sedaris.

59. "Come critique time, most students behaved as if the assignment had been to confine the stories in a dark, enclosed area and test their reaction to sensory deprivation."

- David Sedaris.

60. "I had no job at the time and was living off the cruel joke I referred to as my savings."

- David Sedaris.

61. "In disliking them, I was forced to recognize my own pretension, and that made me hate them even more."

- David Sedaris.

62. "There's a reason regular people don't appear on TV: we're boring."

- David Sedaris.

63. "If yo've had a lot of cosmetic surgery in the past — your eyes lifted, your wrinkles pumped with collagen — your youthful self will appear freakish and catlike, like one of those aliens rumored to have visited the town of Roswell, New Mexico!"

- David Sedaris.

64. "I like imagining the confusion my product will generate..."

- David Sedaris.

65. "For the first twenty years of my life, I rocked myself to sleep. It was a harmless enough hobby, but eventually, I had to give it up."

- David Sedaris.

David Sedaris Quotes From ‘Barrel Fever’

The first David Sedaris book to be released, 'Barrel Fever' is a treasure trove of David Sedaris quotes.

66. "I have not liked or trusted Mrs. Peacock from the moment she entered our home."

- David Sedaris.

67. "You’d have to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to know what you’re getting yourself into, so if there’s blame, blame yourself."

- David Sedaris.

68. "Doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies. The less we have to do with those people the better off we’ll be."

- David Sedaris.

69. "Dad said that the guy who can play guitar is going to be the life of the party. He’s confusing life with death."

- David Sedaris.

70. "I do, however, pay close attention to the radio and have quite an impressive collection of tapes."

- David Sedaris.

71. "I urge you now to take those paperweights and stone them. Release your anger!"

- David Sedaris.

72. "I have learned to destroy all the evidence. It isn’t enough to hide it..."

- David Sedaris.

73. "... certain people who have mistreated and under-estimated me are probably wishing they had the chance to take it all back and start over again with a fresh slate but I’m afraid it’s too late for that."

- David Sedaris.

74. "I was the guest who went from loving too much to being loved too much. Everybody loves me."

- David Sedaris.

75. "Her trick is to act like she’s happy with any little scrap."

- David Sedaris.

76. "If you think too hard about anything it’s bound to take the fun out of it."

- David Sedaris.

77. "When I listen to music I like to relax and imagine my place in it."

- David Sedaris.

78. "I am not a physician but have read enough to know that everything is not as complicated as it is made to sound."

- David Sedaris.

79. "The press is having a field day over the news of my relationship with Mike Tyson. We tried to keep it a secret, but for Mike and me there can be no privacy."

- David Sedaris.

80. "Did you see the show? Chuck Connors and Cyrus Vance were, in my opinion, just making an appearance in order to bolster their sagging careers."

- David Sedaris.

Brilliant David Sedaris Quotes From 'Dress Your Family In Corduroy And Denim'

Scroll down for some great David Sedaris quotes from his best-selling book.

81. "Back in New York State, we had lived in the country, with no sidewalks or streetlights; you could leave the house and still be alone."

- David Sedaris.

82. "Because they had no TV, the Tomkeys were forced to talk during dinner."

- David Sedaris.

83. "For months I had protected and watched over these people, but now, with one stupid act, they had turned my pity into something hard and ugly."

- David Sedaris.

84. "Poor Tiffany. She’d do just about anything in return for a little affection."

- David Sedaris.

85. "... people repeated their sentences twice."

- David Sedaris.

86. "In the coming years our father would continue to promise what he couldn’t deliver..."

- David Sedaris.

87. "We were the family that never shut down..."

- David Sedaris.

88. "It would have been nice, a place at the beach, but we already had a home."

- David Sedaris.

89. "We spoke like children in a fairy tale, hoping our goodness might lure the sun from its hiding place."

- David Sedaris.

90."Visitors were infrequent at our house..."

- David Sedaris.

91."To say that you did not believe in television was different from saying that you did not care for it."

- David Sedaris.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for David Sedaris quotes then why not take a look at these Bob Hope quotes or Christopher Hitchens quotes too?

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Written by Srija Chanda

Master of Arts specializing in Mass Communication/Media Studies

Srija Chanda picture

Srija ChandaMaster of Arts specializing in Mass Communication/Media Studies

An aspiring media professional, Srija is currently pursuing her Master's degree in Mass Communication at St. Xavier's University, Kolkata, after completing her degree in journalism. With experience in PR and social media, she has also honed her leadership skills through her participation in a youth parliament. Srija's interests include devouring books, watching movies, and exploring new places through travel.

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