It hardly seemed fair, because, unlike a horse or a Seeing Eye dog, the whole glory of being a bird is that nobody would ever put you to work.
David SedarisThis was the consequence of seeing too much and understanding the horrible truth: No one is safe. The world is not manageable.
David SedarisYou 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 SedarisI wanted to be a visual artist, but I realized I was more affected by what I read than by what I saw. I would go to a show at a museum and look at a painting and say, 'Oh I wish I owned that,' and that would be the end of my relationship with a painting. With a short story I would read or with an author I would discover I could be haunted. It would affect my mood and affect the way that I saw the world. I thought, wow, it would be amazing to be able to do that.
David Sedaris