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b42f6ae
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a new group, flexitarians, who eat meat if not too many people are watching.
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David Sedaris |
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5164ac3
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You have how many children in your family?" the teacher would ask. "I'm guessing you must be Catholic, am I right?"
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David Sedaris |
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bafd06a
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Sex," the driver said, "Has no one ever told you about it?" I took the New York Times from my carry-on bag and pretended to read, an act that apparently explained it all. "Ohhh," the driver said, "I understand. You do not like pussy. You like the dick. Is that it?" I brought the paper close to my face, and he stuck his arm through the little window and slapped the back of his seat. "David," he said, "David, listen to me when I am talking to..
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sex
humor
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David Sedaris |
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0d9f33c
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I would clear the table and Hugh would do the dishes, neither of us speaking and both of us wondering if this just might be the one to do it. 'I hear you guys broke up over a plastic hand,' people would say, and my rage would renew itself.
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David Sedaris |
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558c8bd
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With practice I will eventually realize my goal; in the meantime, come to Paris and you will find me, headphones plugged tight in my external audio meatus, walking the quays and whispering, 'Has anything else been inserted into your anus? Has anything else been inserted into your anus?
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David Sedaris |
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fe95e30
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I am optimistic that things will fall into place, and one day I'll be sitting in New York City with correct bus fare in my pocket.
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David Sedaris |
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4871255
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Neither were we allowed to choose what we ate. I have a friend whose seven-year-old will only consider something if it's white. Had I tried that, my parents would have said, "You're on," and served me a bowl of paste, followed by joint compound, and, maybe if I was good, some semen." --
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David Sedaris |
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790c907
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What looks good now is guaranteed to embarrass you twenty years down the line, which is, of course, the whole problem with fashion.
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David Sedaris |
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46a728e
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If I'd been burned alive because of bad grades, my parents would have killed me, especially my father, who meant well but was just a little too gung ho for my taste.
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David Sedaris |
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692c8f0
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A person doesn't consciously choose what he focuses on. Those things choose you, and, once they do, nothing, it seems, can shake them.
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David Sedaris |
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b9accba
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The Romanians really do lead the world when it comes to cursing. "What have you got for me?" I asked a woman from Transylvania who was now living in Vienna. "Shove your hand up my ass and jerk off my shit," she offered. I was stunned. "Anyone else would say, 'Shove your hand up my ass,' and then run out of imagination," I told her. "You people, though, you just keep going. And that's what makes you the champions you are." , I thought, watc..
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David Sedaris |
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05300c4
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there are only two kinds of flights: ones in which you die and ones in which you do not.
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David Sedaris |
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5bad871
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Bitch, I'm here to tell you that it's going to be all right. We'll get through this shit, motherfucker, just you wait.
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David Sedaris |
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a1d14c7
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Me: Did you get your tree yet? Ken: I'm a Jew, I don't decorate Christmas trees. Me: So you're going to go with a wreath instead? Ken: I just told you, I'm a Jew. Me: Oh, I get it. You're looking for a cheap wreath. Ken: I'm not looking for a wreath at all. Leave me alone, will you. Me: You're probably just tense because you haven't finished your Christmas shopping. Ken: I don't Christmas shop. Me: What are you telling me? That you all of..
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David Sedaris |
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4d57539
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He sounded like me when I sensed there were drugs around: "All I know is that if someone wants to get high, or wants to watch while I smoke his dope, I'll do it. I really will."
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David Sedaris |
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8ddb645
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The thing to remeber is that more than anything in this world, these colored people wish they were white.
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David Sedaris |
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9097cc6
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In the role of Mary, six-year-old Shannon Burke just barely manages to pass herself off as a virgin.
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David Sedaris |
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ef4267f
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It was the artist's duty to find the appropriate objects, and the audience's job to decipher meaning. If the piece failed to work, it was their fault, not yours.
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David Sedaris |
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75e830a
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Rather than admit defeat, I decided to change goals.
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David Sedaris |
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ea64fd2
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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.
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pleasure
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David Sedaris |
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7ec2ded
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In the last month of the presidential campaign, I tuned in to conservative talk radio and listened as callers considered the unthinkable. One after another, they all threatened the same thing: "If McCain doesn't win, I'm leaving the country." "Oh, right," I'd say. "You're going to leave and go where? Right-wing Europe?" In the Netherlands now, I imagine it's legal to marry your own children. Get them pregnant, and you can abort your unborn ..
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David Sedaris |
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6a3d156
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Use the word "y'all," and before you knew it, you'd find yourself in a haystack French-kissing an underage goat. Along with grits and hush puppies, the abbreviated form of you all was a dangerous step on an insidious path leading straight to the doors of the Baptist church."
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David Sedaris |
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6dce9b5
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never fall asleep in a Dumpster, never underestimate a bee, never drive a convertible behind a flatbed truck, never get old, never get drunk near a train, and never, under any circumstances, cut off your air supply while masturbating.
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David Sedaris |
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3a75594
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Hugh returned from his trip, and days later I still sounded like a Red Chinese asking questions about the democratic hinterlands. "And you actually saw people smoking in restuarants? Really! And offices, too? Oh, tell me again about the ashtrays in the hospital waiting room, and don't leave anything out."
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smoking
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David Sedaris |
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15f10fb
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Her expression changed then, becoming fearful rather than merely pained. It was the look you get when facing a sudden and insurmountable danger: the errant truck, the shakey ladder, the crazy person who pins you to the linoleum and insists, with increasing urgency, that everything you know and love can be undone by a grape.
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David Sedaris |
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e82ce64
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Leeches are singing in my asshole.
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David Sedaris |
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c544cdb
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On the plane from Paris I heard a man say, "The first thing I'm going to do when I get home is order a Big Gulp. I'm going to supersize everything!" He said he'd been thirsty the entire time he was in Paris, and though I'd never thought about it, if you're used to carrying a trash-can-size cup filled with crushed ice and soda, I suppose it would be hard to spend a few weeks in Europe."
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David Sedaris |
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587d349
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My mother was, for the most part, delighted with my brother and regarded him with the bemused curiosity of a brood hen discovering she has hatched a completely different species. 'I think it was very nice of Paul to give me this vase,' she once said, arranging a bouquet of wildflowers into the skull-shaped bong my brother had left on the kitchen table. 'It's nontraditional, but that's the Rooster's way. He's a free spirit, and we're lucky t..
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family
humor
satire
drugs
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David Sedaris |
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ce4fc91
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Comfort has its place, but it seems rude to visit another country dressed as if you've come to mow its lawns.
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David Sedaris |
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ce6accd
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In imagining myself as modest, mysterious, and fiercely intelligent, I'm forced to realize that, in real life, I am none of these qualities. Nobody dreams of the things he already has.
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David Sedaris |
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4578e30
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Dad wants to talk about her death--he needs to--but unlike the rest of us, who yak incessantly about our feelings, he has no vocabulary for it and is reduced to the cliches you'd find on a sympathy card. It's like not knowing a language.
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David Sedaris |
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1873fa8
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It's not lost on me that I'm so busy recording life, I don't have time to really live it. I've become like one of those people I hate, the sort who go to the museum and, instead of looking at the magnificent Brueghel, take a picture of it, reducing it from art to proof. It's not "Look what Brueghel did, painted this masterpiece" but "Look what I did, went to Rotterdam and stood in front of a Brueghel painting!"
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David Sedaris |
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955c2a9
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My only comfort was the knowledge that I was not alone. Huddled in the hallways and making the most of our pathetic French, my fellow students and I engaged in the sort of conversation commonly overheard in refugee camps. "Sometime me cry alone at night." "That be common for I, also, but be more strong, you. Much work and someday you talk pretty. People start love you soon. Maybe tomorrow, okay."
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humor
french-language
language-learning
students
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David Sedaris |
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1b171ab
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You're not supposed to talk about your good deeds, I know. It effectively negates them and in the process makes people hate you.
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David Sedaris |
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db255e9
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It's hard to love a place that's outlawed smoking but finds it perfectly acceptable to serve raw fish in a bath of chocolate.
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place
smoking
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David Sedaris |
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3297a76
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Honestly, though, does choice even come into it? Is it my fault that the good times fade to nothing while the bad ones burn forever bright?
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David Sedaris |
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a016002
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Someone in our family had taken to wiping his or her ass on the bath towels. What made this exceptionally disturbing was that all our towels were fudge-colored. You'd be drying your hair when, too late, you noticed an unmistakable odor on your hands, head, and face.
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David Sedaris |
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2cc407a
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In my book, if you want to be treated like an old person, you have to look like one. That means no face-lift, no blond hair, and definitely no fishnet stockings.
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David Sedaris |
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8e5f995
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It bothered me that the bag bothered me more than head did, but what are you going to do? A person doesn't conciously choose what he focuses on. Those things choose you, and, once they do, nothing, it seems, can shake them.
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understanding-understanding-owls
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David Sedaris |
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59c28ce
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The slumber party took place in what the Methodists called a family room, the Catholics used as an extra bedroom, and the neighborhood's only Jews had turned into a combination darkroom and fallout shelter.
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David Sedaris |
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cd9672f
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She hit bottom when she physically attacked a deaf-mute. This was a boy of fourteen, a beloved neighborhood figure who delivered for the nearby deli.
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David Sedaris |
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77981bb
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between the disfigurement and the muzzle, it's nearly impossible to catch what she's saying. Always, though, while tripping and stumbling to the music, she looks out into her audience and tells the story about her mother. Most people laugh and yell for her to lift her skirts, but every so often she'll spot someone weeping and swear they can understand her every word.
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unaware
tragic
sad
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David Sedaris |
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ad6defb
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Do you mind if we make this a no-smoking bench?" There is no "we." Our votes automatically cancel one another out. What she meant was, "Do you mind if I make this a no-smoking bench?This woman was wearing a pair of sandals, which are always a sure sign of trouble. They looked like the sort of shoes Moses might have worn while he chiseled regulations onto stone tablets. I looked at her sandals and at her rapidly moving arms and I crushed my ..
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David Sedaris |
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709355e
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Good girl, Rachel. Now, let's get the hell out of here. Your mother has a headache that won't quit until you're twenty-one
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David Sedaris |