When I look at a lot of older stuff that I've written, I think one sign of amateur humor writing is when you see people trying too hard.
— David Sedaris
I sometimes read books on my iPad.
Also, I used to think that one day I might get someone to iron my shirts, but the truth is I really like doing them myself.
I'm not a reporter but the 'New Yorker' treats everyone like a reporter.
But I'm a humorist. I'm not a reporter, I never pretended to be a reporter.
Sometimes with 'The New Yorker,' they have grammar rules that just don't feel right in my mouth.
Actually I liked that 'Let the Right One In,' that Swedish vampire movie.
I cry all the time when I watch 'Glee' because I don't know if it's satire or melodrama and that makes me feel like the writing is aware of itself, and that makes it OK to cry.
To say that a humorist exaggerates to get big laughs, I don't see how that's big news.
I just enjoy lying on the couch and reading a magazine.
I've never gone on Facebook and am not sure I understand it. The same goes for Twitter. I have someone sending tweets and pretending to be me, but I don't know why.
I love getting attention, just like a child loves it, and it's never worn off. So when people say, oh the book signings go on, why would I shoo away someone who's giving me attention? What part of standing in line for 10 hours to say how much they love you is bad to you?
I meet people at book signings. My record now, for signing, is ten and a half hours in one sitting.
I don't like being left to my own thoughts.
I go to the movies at least five times a week, and after a while everything becomes a blur to me.
If you read somebody's diary, you get what you deserve.
I went from having 50 listeners to 50 million listeners.
But I don't distinguish between being laughed with, and laughed at. I'll take either.
I guess my guilty pleasure would be listening to the British audio versions of the 'Harry Potter' books.
I tend to show everything I do to my family, to check they won't be offended.
When you read comic material and people aren't laughing how do you know they're listening.
Because I've always been a fairly nervous person.
I always knew I wanted it to be illustrated.
The only real advice you can give anyone is to keep writing.
I love 'Glee.'
Lovers of audio books learn to live with compromise.
As a foreigner in London, I like that there are so many other foreigners.
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.
Sometimes I say to myself, 'Oh, I wish I could win a Tony Award', although I'm not that bothered.
If I'm riding my bike I just replay the same scenarios over and over in my head, like I haven't had a new mental adventure since high school. So that's what I like about books on tape, so my mind can't wander anywhere.
I started writing when I was twenty, and my first book came out seventeen years later.
No one writes dialect better than Flannery O'Connor. No one should even try.
I've been keeping diaries for 27 years.
I just think that the people who say: 'That's not true' when someone tells a story at dinner are the people who didn't get any laughs when they told their story.
I like listening to books as well, as that way you can iron at the same time.
I like nonfiction books about people with wretched lives.
What other people call dark and despairing, I call funny.
I've always been very upfront about the way I write, and I've always used the tools humorists use, such as exaggeration.
I don't think my life is more interesting than anybody else's.
But most good movies have a gun in them.
Do I exaggerate? Boy, do I, and I'd do it more if I could get away with it.
I think it's important to take chances.
I don't have email.
I've been keeping a diary for thirty-three years and write in it every morning. Most of it's just whining, but every so often there'll be something I can use later: a joke, a description, a quote. It's an invaluable aid when it comes to winning arguments. 'That's not what you said on February 3, 1996,' I'll say to someone.
It's odd the things that people remember. Parents will arrange a birthday party, certain it will stick in your mind forever. You'll have a nice time, then two years later you'll be like, 'There was a pony there? Really? And a clown with one leg?'
There are lots of things that happen to me that I don't write about.
I felt uncomfortable calling myself a writer until I started with 'The New Yorker,' and then I was like, 'Okay, now you can call yourself that.'
I like books on tape, and will listen to just about anything.
People ask if I miss it, but they don't understand that American culture is so ubiquitous that there's nothing to miss. I don't see myself moving back. It's not that I hate the United States. I just always thought it would be a shame not to live in a foreign country.
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.
