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4630308
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When the week was over, we went to Paris. There are any number of stores there that time seems to have forgotten. At one of them I bought five rubber noses. That's one for every serial killer I read about while I was in France.
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David Sedaris |
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40ba6d6
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She'd never expressed any great interest in the outdoors, so I scattered her remains on the carpet and then vacuumed her back up.
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David Sedaris |
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1c18a21
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When young, the animals were sweet. Then one day they became moody and violent, like human teenagers
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David Sedaris |
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bbcf8d0
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The Romanians really do lead the world when it comes to cursing.
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David Sedaris |
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8fa3d4f
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this former director of the FBI whom we all hated until someone we hated even more fired him.
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David Sedaris |
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458a91a
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We were very crowded today and I got a kick out of completing the transaction, handing the customer a receipt, and saying, "Your photos will be mailed on August tenth."
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David Sedaris |
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8cc0816
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It's astonishing the amount of time that certain straight people devote to gay sex--trying to determine what goes where and how often. They can't imagine any system outside their own, and seem obsessed with the idea of roles, both in bed and out of it.
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David Sedaris |
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218bc1f
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We've gotten ourselves a mortgage broker named Marcus Paisley, a man we obviously chose for his name. Hugh spoke to him yesterday morning and we spent the rest of the day imagining future calls. "I'm starting to see a pattern here, Paisley, and I don't like it."
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David Sedaris |
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0675516
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I often see people on the streets dressed as objects and handing out leaflets. I tend to avoid leaflets but it breaks my heart to see a grown man dressed as a taco. So, if there is a costume involved, I tend not only to accept the leaflet, but to accept it graciously, saying, "Thank you so much," and thinking, You poor, pathetic son of a bitch. I don't know what you have but I hope I never catch it." --
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David Sedaris |
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4ffcd6f
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A lot of our outlawed terms were invented by black people and then picked up by whites, who held on to them way past their expiration date. 'My bad,' for example, and 'I've got your back' and 'You go, girlfriend.' They're the verbal equivalents of sitcom grandmothers high-fiving one another, and on hearing them, I wince and feel ashamed of my entire race.
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white-people
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David Sedaris |
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8a598fe
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This was for me one of those adult moments involving a choice. Do you shrug your shoulders and say, "I couldn't get it to work either," or do you tell the woman she spent the weekend trying to open a wine bottle with the broken knob to the dishwasher?"
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David Sedaris |
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59283f1
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Dad doesn't pay attention when you talk to him, so Paul's taken to throwing the term IRS into his sentences. Then it's suddenly: "Hold on a second, what did you say?"
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David Sedaris |
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3a78207
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As we walk into the store, he confides that his biggest regret is that Melina never got to have sex, that he ruined all that by getting her spayed.
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David Sedaris |
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210f2c4
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Hugh and I returned to Normandy the following summer, and I resumed my identity as the village idiot. "See you again yesterday!" I said to the butcher. "Ashtray! Bottleneck!"
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David Sedaris |
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8747087
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Today the teacher told us that a ripe Camembert should have the same consistency as a human eyebrow.
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David Sedaris |
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cc78e17
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For that's all Gatorade ever tastes like--its color. Over the period that I had my stomach virus, I tried them all: blue, red, green, yellow, orange, and a new opaque one that tasted opaque.
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David Sedaris |
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8a9025d
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What they hear is senseless noise. It's like us trying to discern emotion in the hum of a hair dryer or the chortle of an engine as it fails to turn over. That's the drawback but also the glory of creatures that were never domesticated. Nothing feels better than being singled out by something that at best should fear you and at worst would like to eat you. I think of the people I've known over the years who've found a baby raccoon or possum..
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David Sedaris |
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f0c7390
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Opinions constantly shifted and evolved, were fluid the same way thoughts were. Ten minutes into The Exorcist you might say, "This is boring." An hour later you could decide that it was the best thing you'd ever seen, and it was no different with people. The villain at three in the afternoon might be the hero by sunset. It was all just storytelling."
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David Sedaris |
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4e5d532
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I didn't see my sessions as the sort of thing that one would want to advertise, but as my teacher liked to say, "I guess it takes all kinds." Whereas my goal was to keep it a secret, hers was to inform the entire class. If I got up from my seat at 2:25, she'd say, "Sit back down, David. You've still got five minutes before your speech therapy session." If I remained seated until 2:27, she'd say, "David, don't forget you have a speech therap..
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David Sedaris |
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db66ce1
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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."
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David Sedaris |
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595c1fd
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Mates, to my sisters and me, are seen mainly as shadows of the people they're involved with. They move. They're visible in direct sunlight. But because they don't have access to our emotional buttons--because they can't make us twelve again, or five, and screaming--they don't really count as players
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David Sedaris |
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094daab
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No," I corrected her, "I'm not a misogynist, I'm a misanthrope. I hate everyone equally."
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David Sedaris |
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dca57b0
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In fact, 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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dbfb66a
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The guy in the T-shirt that pictures a semiautomatic rifle above the message COME AND TAKE IT, the one in fatigues buying two twelve-packs of beer and a tub of rice pudding, didn't necessarily vote Republican. He could have just stayed home on Election Day and force-fed the women he holds captive in the crawl space beneath his living room.
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David Sedaris |
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ec47e3d
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but things change once you've been together for 10 years. They rarely make movies about long-term couples and for good reason. Our lives are boring.
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David Sedaris |
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8b65b6f
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The Times came last night; tonight it was Newsday and the Voice. I want to tell them we were just joking. It's not a real play, it's what comes from doodling while you're holding a bong.
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David Sedaris |
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07e159e
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some cigarettes and when I returned she sat me down to discuss the Winter Olympics. "Did you see it on the TV? That Tonya Harding? I never liked her. She's a street fighter is what she is, a dirty snot. Nancy Kerrigan I like, but not that street fighter." Tonya Harding really is something else. I resisted the story until I saw a picture of her. With her fierce makeup, she looks like a child's drawing of an angry babysitter."
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David Sedaris |
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7db074e
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Greeks are just Jews without money.
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David Sedaris |
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bf44244
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I sat him down the other night and explained as gently as possible that I do not care about ice-skating. I do not care about Michelle Kwan or Tara Lipinski and would be happy if I never hear the words triple lutz or double axel again. I told him that on Friday and walked into the kitchen an hour later to find him in tears. "It's heartbreaking," he said, watching his beloved skaters."
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David Sedaris |
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2a31c95
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didn't need a fifteen-minute conversation, just some human interaction. It can be had, and easily: a gesture, a joke, something that says, "I live in this world too."
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David Sedaris |
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c48cc7e
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A lot of our outlawed terms were invented by black people and then picked up by whites, who held on to them way past their expiration date. 'My bad,' for example, and 'I've got your back' and You go, girlfriend.' They're the verbal equivalents of sitcom grandmothers high-fiving one another, and on hearing them, I wince and feel ashamed of my entire race.
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white-people
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David Sedaris |
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a2d7aa7
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I'm often misunderstood at my supermarket in Sussex, not because of my accent but because I tend to deviate from the script. Cashier: Hello, how are you this evening? Me: Has your house ever been burgled? Cashier: What? Me: Your house--has anyone ever broken into it and stolen things? With me, people aren't thinking What did you say? so much as Why are you saying that?
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David Sedaris |
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2341299
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And he always has a fantastic body, shown at its best on the cross, which--face it--was practically designed to make a man's stomach and shoulders look good.
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David Sedaris |
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e96ed8f
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Some people, I thought, opening the wet wipes so I could wash the tumor off my hands before I touched my wallet.
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David Sedaris |
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f5175a3
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Following a brief period of hard-won independence she came to appreciate the fact that people aren't foolish as much as they are kind.
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David Sedaris |
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cb227a6
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At around five, I took the L home. A woman near me had a three-year-old child on her lap, a girl, who looked at me and said, "Mommy, I hate that man."
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David Sedaris |
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02ede4f
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Someone stopped Mitch on the street last night and said, "I need another seventy-five cents so I can buy a cheeseburger. How about helping me?" Mitch said, "Get it without the cheese," and continued walking."
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David Sedaris |
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a1465d0
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Don't go to the hardware store for milk.
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David Sedaris |
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70da1e7
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I told myself that if I looked at my brother differently, it was because of the suit, nto the weight. He was a grown man now. He was going to get married, and therefore, he was a changed person. He took a sip of my father's weak coffee and spit it back into the mug. "This shit's like making love in a canoe." "Excuse me?" "It's fucking near water." Then again, I thought, maybe it is just the weight."
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David Sedaris |
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a16e24b
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I told myself that if I looked at my brother differently, it was because of the suit, not the weight. He was a grown man now. He was going to get married, and therefore, he was a changed person. He took a sip of my father's weak coffee and spit it back into the mug. "This shit's like making love in a canoe." "Excuse me?" "It's fucking near water." Then again, I thought, maybe it is just the weight."
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David Sedaris |
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3199b37
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When apple-picking season ended, I got a job in a packing plant and gravitated toward short stories, which I could read during my break and reflect upon for the remainder of my shift. A good one would take me out of myself and then stuff me back in, outsized, now, and uneasy with the fit.
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David Sedaris |
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9a8ae44
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In the end I decided the word was more about him than it was about me. But isn't it often that way? It's one thing for someone to describe you in print, to go through several drafts and, after careful consideration, choose the adjective
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David Sedaris |
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8c0a97b
|
That said, I admire people who are curious and open their minds to new possibilities, especially after a certain age. You have to draw the line somewhere, though, and with me it's my anus.
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David Sedaris |
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972b6fc
|
A lot of our outlawed terms were invented by black people and then picked up by whites, who held on to them way past their expiration date. "My bad," for example, and "I've got your back" and "You go, girlfriend." They're the verbal equivalents of sitcom grandmothers high-fiving one another, and on hearing them, I wince and feel ashamed of my entire race."
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David Sedaris |