I always say to young people, "Get the hell out of the United States." Especially if you're young, like if you're 21 or something. Let's say you don't speak any Italian. You're 21. Everyone's going to want to sleep with you and be nice to you. And the best way to learn a language is to sleep with someone from that country.
David SedarisWhen forced to leave my house for an extended period of time, I take my typewriter with me, and together we endure the wretchedness of passing through the X-ray scanner. The laptops roll merrily down the belt, while Iโm instructed to stand aside and open my bag. To me it seems like a normal enough thing to be carrying, but the typewriterโs declining popularity arouses suspicion and I wind up eliciting the sort of reaction one might expect when traveling with a cannon. Itโs a typewriter,โ I say. โYou use it to write angry letters to airport security.
David SedarisPeople are often frightened of Parisians, but an American in Paris will find no harsher critic than another American.
David SedarisI had paid for my folly and, as a reward, was invited to take part in the nest builderโs performance piece. The script was great. โWhen I bleat here, do you want me to just bleat or to really let go and โbleat, bleatโ?โ I asked. โI feel like โbleat, bleating,โ but if Mother/Destroyer is going to be crawling through the birth canal of concertina wire, I donโt want to steal focus, you know what I mean?
David SedarisPeople ask me, 'Have you ever considered doing stand-up?' To me it would be less offensive if someone asked me, 'Have you ever considered dental implants?'
David SedarisI attributed their behavior to the fact that they didn't have a TV, but television didn't teach you everything. Asking for candy on Halloween was called trick-or-treating, but asking for candy on November first was called begging, and it made people uncomfortable. This was one of the things you were supposed to learn simply by being alive, and it angered me that the Tomkeys did not understand it.
David Sedaris