Top 380 David Sedaris Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Do I exaggerate? Boy, do I, and I’d do it more if I could get away with it.”

— David Sedaris

52. “There is still the outside world to contend with. A world of backfiring cars, and their human equivalents.”

— David Sedaris

53. “On a busy day twenty-two thousand people come to visit Santa, and I was told that it is an elf’s lot to remain merry in the face of torment and adversity. I promised to keep that in mind.”

— David Sedaris

54. “If I were president, I would turn the tables and allow the fetus to abort its mother.”

— David Sedaris

55. “I’d always thought that I understood this, but lately I realize that what I call “understanding” is basically just fantasizing.”

— David Sedaris

56. “Nobody dreams of the things he already has.”

— David Sedaris

57. “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.”

— David Sedaris

58. “When visitors leave, I feel like an actor watching the audience file out of the theater, and it was no different with my sisters. The show over, Hugh and I returned to lesser versions of ourselves. We’re not a horrible couple, but we have our share of fights, the type that can start with a misplaced sock and suddenly be about everything. “I haven’t liked you since 2002,” he hissed during a recent argument over which airport security line was moving the fastest.”

— David Sedaris

59. “There seemed to be some correlation between devotion to God and a misguided zeal for marshmallows.”

— David Sedaris

60. “That’s the problem with wishes, they ensnare you. In fairy tales they’re nothing but trouble, magnifying the greed and vanity of the person for whom they are granted.”

— David Sedaris

61. “Every so often my life will feel like a story. It doesn’t have to be a big thing; in fact, most often, it’s just the opposite.”

— David Sedaris

62. “Standing in a two-hour line makes people worry that they’re not living in a democratic nation. People stand in line for two houres and they go over the edge.”

— David Sedaris

63. “I started writing when I was twenty, and my first book came out seventeen years later.”

— David Sedaris

64. “If you don’t think a mental patient has the right to bring a sawed-off shotgun to the church where his ex-girlfriend is getting married, you’re part of the problem.”

— David Sedaris

65. “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.”

— David Sedaris

66. “I like the kind of man John is. He watches things closely and then does nothing with the information.”

— David Sedaris

67. “It is what it is,” which is ubiquitous now and means absolutely nothing, as far as we can see. “Isn’t that the state motto of South Dakota?” I said the second or third time I heard it.”

— David Sedaris

68. “The part of my plan that made old people uncomfortable, that exposed them for the bigots they were – and on a Sunday! – still appealed to me.”

— David Sedaris

69. “Often I’d take out my magnifying glass and stare into the chaos that was her face.”

— David Sedaris

70. “It really is torture to sit around the house and write all day. I’m thinking it might motivate me to finish the book faster, the thought that after it’s finished I can return to housecleaning. The.”

— David Sedaris

71. “It’s not lost on me that I’m so busy recording life, I don’t have time to really live it.”

— David Sedaris

72. “Most of the blame goes to the director, who seems to have picked up her staging secrets from the school’s crossing guard.”

— David Sedaris

73. “Comfort has its place, but it seems rude to visit another country dressed as if you’ve come to mow its lawns.”

— David Sedaris

74. “As bad a dresser as I am, anything beats being judged by my character.”

— David Sedaris

75. “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

76. “I might reinvent myself to strangers, but to this day, as far as my family is concerned, I’m still the one most likely to set your house on fire.”

— David Sedaris

77. “Happiness is harder to put into words. It’s also harder to source, much more mysterious than anger or sorrow, which come to me promptly, whenever I summon them, and remain long after I’ve begged them to leave.”

— David Sedaris

78. “You’re not supposed to talk about your good deeds, I know. It effectively negates them and in the process makes people hate you.”

— David Sedaris

79. “It was one of those situations I often find myself in while traveling. Something’s said by a stranger I’ve been randomly thrown into contact with, and I want to say, “Listen. I’m with you on most of this, but before we continue, I need to know who you voted for in the last election.”

— David Sedaris

80. “He spends a lot of time telling you how smart he is, which is odd because, if you’re truly all that bright, people can usually figure it out on their own.”

— David Sedaris

81. “I started writing one afternoon when I was twenty, and ever since then I have written every day. At first I had to force myself. Then it became part of my identity, and I did it without thinking.”

— David Sedaris

82. “Though harsh in other respects, prison would be an excellent place to learn a foreign language – total immersion, and you’d have the new slang before it even hit the streets.”

— David Sedaris

83. “Love seemed all the sweeter when it was misunderstood, condemned by the outside world.”

— David Sedaris

84. “I like to reserve the right to write about whatever I like.”

— David Sedaris

85. “I got into the express line behind a middle-aged man in a T-shirt. I never saw the front of it, but the back pictured a Labrador retriever standing on the beach with a bikini top in his mouth. Below him were the words GOOD DOG. Some people, I thought, opening the wet wipes so I could wash the tumor off my hands before I touched my wallet.”

— David Sedaris

86. “I’m pretty sure I could tumble down all the stairs in the Empire State Building, naked, with a greased-up pepper grinder in each hand, and a box of candles around my neck, and still end up in the lobby with an empty rectum.”

— David Sedaris

87. “Black female security officer at the Charlotte airport: How you doing, sweetheart? Me: That’s so nice of you to call me sweetheart. Her: All right, baby. Keep it safe.”

— David Sedaris

88. “Sometimes things happen and I don’t know what to do with my face.”

— David Sedaris

89. “You have what we in France call ‘good time teeth,’” she said. “Why on earth would you want to change them?” “Um, because I can floss with the sash to my bathrobe?”

— David Sedaris

90. “My sister Tiffany told me years ago, ‘You can never write about me.’ Then she called six months ago and said she wanted to be in a story. She was worried people thought I didn’t like her.”

— David Sedaris

91. “Have a blessed day.” This can make you feel like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne.”

— David Sedaris

92. “In my dream world gay people in America would get the right to marry, and not a one of them would use that right.”

— David Sedaris

93. “The rules were just different back then, especially in regard to corporal punishment. Not only could you hit your own children, but you could also hit other people’s.”

— David Sedaris

94. “Some friendships are formed by a commonality of interests and ideas: you both love judo or camping or making your own sausage. Other friendships are forged in alliance against a common enemy.”

— David Sedaris

95. “I see you that have a little swimming mouse.”

— David Sedaris

96. “Snowball just leads elves on, elves and Santas. He is playing a dangerous game.”

— David Sedaris

97. “I’m for gay elopement, not for gay weddings. I’ve been with my boyfriend for twenty years. I don’t feel like that would validate our relationship in any way. But I would really fight for someone else to have the right. Just elope, though, please.”

— David Sedaris

98. “I’d tried to straighten him out, but there’s only so much you can do for a person who thinks Auschwitz is a brand of beer.”

— David Sedaris

99. “Still, there were moments when, against all reason, I thought I might be a genius. These moments were provoked not by any particular accomplishment but by cocaine and crystal methamphetamine – drugs that allow you to lean over a mirror with a straw up your nose, suck up an entire week’s paycheck, and think, “God, I’m smart.”

— David Sedaris

100. “My boyfriend got me a computer three years ago. I’ll admit it does make things a lot easier. When I was working on a typewriter and I whited out a line, often I would choose a word to go in the space just because it fit. Now I don’t have to do that.”

— David Sedaris