David Sedaris

Certain motherfuckers think they can fuck with my shit, but you can't kill the Rooster. You might can fuck him up some times, but, bitch, nobody kills the motherfucking Rooster. You know what I'm saying?

All I do is lie, and that has made me immune to compliments.

My hands tend to be full enough dealing with people who hate me for who I am. Concentrate too hard on the millions of people who hate you for what you are and you're likely to turn into one of those unkempt, sloppy dressers who sag beneath the weight of the two hundred political buttons they wear pinned to their coats and knapsacks.

Across town, over in the East Village, the graffiti was calling for the rich to be eaten, imprisoned, or taxed out of existence. Though it sometimes seemed like a nice idea, I hoped the revolution would not take place during my lifetime. I didn't want the rich to go away until I could at least briefly join their ranks.

Mr. Mancini had a singular talent for making me uncomfortable. He forced me to consider things I__ rather not think about _ the sex of my guitar, for instance. If I honestly wanted to put my hands on a woman, would that automatically mean I could play? Gretchen__ teacher never told her to think of her piano as a boy. Neither did Lisa__ flute teacher, though in that case the analogy was obvious. On the off chance that sexual desire was all it took, I steered clear of Lisa__ instrument, fearing that I might be labeled a prodigy.

I've become like one of those people I hate, the sort who go to the museum and, instead of looking at the magnificent Brueghel, take a picture of it, reducing it from art to proof. It's not "Look what Brueghel did, painted this masterpiece" but "Look what I did, went to Rotterdam and stood in front of a Brueghel painting!

A week after my drugs ran out, I left my bed to perform at the college, deciding at the last minute to skip both the doughnut toss and the march of the headless plush toys. Instead, I just heated up a skillet of plastic soldiers, poured a milkshake over my head and called it a night.

After a few months in my parents' basement, I took an apartment near the state university, where I discovered both crystal methamphetamine and conceptual art. Either one of these things are dangerous, but in combination they have the potential to destroy entire civilizations.

Oh, for Christ's sake,' I hear. 'Can we please just try to have a good time?' This is like ordering someone to find you attractive, and it doesn't work. I've tried it.

When 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 I__ instructed to stand aside and open my bag. To me it seems like a normal enough thing to be carrying, but the typewriter__ declining popularity arouses suspicion and I wind up eliciting the sort of reaction one might expect when traveling with a cannon.It__ a typewriter,_ I say. __ou use it to write angry letters to airport security.

Kools and Newports were for black people and lower-class whites. Camels were for procrastinators, those who wrote bad poetry, and those who put off writing bad poetry. Merits were for sex addicts, Salems were for alcoholics, and Mores were for people who considered themselves to be outrageous but really weren't.

On Undecided Voter__: "To put them in perspective, I think_ of being_ on an airplane._ The flight attendant comes_ down the aisle_ with her food cart and, eventually,_ parks_ it beside my seat._ __an I inter__st you in the chick__n?__ she asks._ __r would_ you prefer the platter of shit with bits of broke__ glass_ in it?__o be undecided in this elect__on is to pause_ for a moment and then ask how the chick__n is cooked.

Hugh consoled me, saying, "Don't let it get to you. There are plenty of things you're good at."When asked for some examples, he listed vacuuming and naming stuffed animals. He says he can probably come up with a few more, but he'll need some time to think.

I'm the most important person in the lives of almost everyone I know and a good number of the people I've never even met.

I 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.

Speed eliminates all doubt. Am I smart enough? Will people like me? Do I really look all right in this plastic jumpsuit?

At the end of a miserable day, instead of grieving my virtual nothing, I can always look at my loaded wastepaper basket and tell myself that if I failed, at least I took a few trees down with me.

For the first twenty years of my life, I rocked myself to sleep. It was a harmless enough hobby, but eventually, I had to give it up. Throughout the next twenty-two years I lay still and discovered that after a few minutes I could drop off with no problem. Follow seven beers with a couple of scotches and a thimble of good marijuana, and it__ funny how sleep just sort of comes on its own. Often I never even made it to the bed. I__ squat down to pet the cat and wake up on the floor eight hours later, having lost a perfectly good excuse to change my clothes. I__ now told that this is not called __oing to sleep_ but rather __assing out,_ a phrase that carries a distinct hint of judgment.