Happy-Go-Lucky Quotes

“At twenty-two, you are built for poverty and rejection. And you know why? Because you're good-looking. You might not realize it this morning, but thirty years from now, you will pull out pictures of yourself taken on this day and think, Why did nobody tell me I was so fucking attractive? You maybe can't see it now because you're comparing yourself to the person next to you, or two rows up. But you are stunning.”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“Be yourself.
Unless yourself is an asshole.”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“A man can beat his wife with car antennas, can trade his children for drugs or motorcycles, but still, when he finally, mercifully, dies, his survivors will have to hear from some know-nothing at the post-funeral dinner that he did his best. This, I’m guessing, is based on the premise that we all give 110 percent all the time, regarding everything: our careers, our relationships, the attention we pay to our appearance, etc.”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“For, rather than thinking of his death, I will be thinking of the story of his death, so much so that after his funeral Amy will ask, "Did I see you taking notes during the service?"
There'll be no surprise in her voice. Rather, it will be the way you might playfully scold a squirrel: "Did you just jump up from the deck and completely empty that bird feeder?"
The squirrel and me—it's in our nature, though maybe not forever. For our natures, I have just recently learned from my father, can change. Or maybe they're simply revealed, and the dear, cheerful man I saw that afternoon at Springmoor was there all along, smothered in layers of rage and impatience that burned away as he blazed into the homestretch.”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“There are few greater pleasures than feeling proud of someone, of worrying you might burst with it, especially if that someone is related to you and therefore part of your organization. I've always thought of my family that way, as a company. What's good for one of us is good for all of us. Our jobs are to advance the name Sedaris.”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“Now I think that guys who wear baseball caps with their sunglasses perched on the brims have guns, if—and this is important—the lenses of those sunglasses are mirrored or fade from orange to yellow, like a tequila sunrise.”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“Where I live now, in the UK, it’s hard to get a rifle and next to impossible to secure a handgun. Yet somehow, against all odds, British people feel free. Is it that they don’t know what they’re missing? Or is the freedom they feel the freedom of not being shot to death in a classroom or shopping mall or movie theater?”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“My sister is not dating anyone–a good thing, as she’s got way too much time on her hands. And that, I think, is the number one reason so many relationships fail. Too much free time, and too much time together. (P. 157)”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“America is a hard place to be if you’re self-conscious about your smile—especially certain parts of America, like Southern California. I used to think that people there wore dark glasses because it was hard to drive with the sun in their eyes. More likely it’s the glare of an oncoming driver’s teeth that blinds them. This is why I feel so comfortable in Japan, where dental standards are seemingly nonexistent and people have been wearing masks for years. The scariest mouth I ever saw was on a clerk in a Tokyo department store. The woman’s top central incisors grew outward from her gums like tusks and formed a dark, uneven shelf her upper lip rested upon.”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“At twenty-two, you are built for poverty and rejection. And you know why? Because you’re good-looking. You might not realize it this morning, but thirty years from now, you will pull out pictures of yourself taken on this day and think, Why did nobody tell me I was so fucking attractive? You maybe can’t see it now because you’re comparing yourself to the person next to you, or two rows up. But you are stunning.”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“what you need. That spark you feel when an idea comes to you—This could work. I can actually make this happen!—is Western privilege as well. It may not be certainty, but it’s hope, and if you think that’s worthless, try living in a place where nobody has it. Worse still, try getting a decent hotel room there.”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“In America, the talk now is all about white privilege, but regardless of your race, there’s American privilege as well, or at least Western privilege. It means that when you’re in Dakar or Minsk your embassy is open and staffed, and you don’t need to hand out bribes in order to get”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“If you think I’m putting my bra back on for this bullshit, you”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“By this point it was 2:58, and I was starting to panic, thinking, I guess, that if I didn't give the money away by 3:16, the God I claim not to believe in, the one whose only son was used to sell nails in one of my favorite jokes, was going to smite me.”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“Lisa, you’re a natural,” Lonnie said. “OK, Mike, now you give it a try.” I looked around, confused. “Excuse me?” He handed me the .38. “You came here to shoot, didn’t you?” I accepted the gun, and from then until the time we left, my name was Mike, which was more than a little demoralizing. Not getting the “Wait a minute—the David Sedaris?” I have come to expect when meeting someone was bad enough, but being turned into a Mike, of all things? I thought of the time a woman approached me in a hotel lobby. “Pardon me,” she said, “but are you here for the Lions Club meeting?” That’s the Mike of organizations.”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“friends marry three women from different parts of the world. The first chooses a Spanish girl and tells her on their wedding night that she has to do the dishes and the laundry, and to generally keep the house in order. It takes a while to break her in, but on the third day he”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“Saul Bellow wrote, “Losing a parent is something like driving through a plate-glass window. You didn’t know it was there until it shattered, and then for years to come you’re picking up the pieces.”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“One always hears of families falling apart after the death of a parent, Lifelong checks are no longer in place and the balance is thrown off. Slights become insurmountable. There are squabbles over the estate, etc. It's a pretty rough patch of road.”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“On my next book tour the theme was monkeys, and on the latest one it was items men shove inside themselves and later have to go to the emergency room to have extracted. This started when an ER nurse told me about a patient she’d seen earlier in the week who had pushed a dildo too far up his ass. The door had shut behind it, so he’d tried fishing it out with a coat hanger. When that proved the wrong tool for the job, he’d snipped it with wire cutters, then gone after both the dildo and the cut-off hanger with a sturdier, fresh hanger. You hear this from doctors and nurses all the time: their patients shove light bulbs inside themselves, shampoo bottles, pool balls…and they always concoct some incredible story to explain their predicament. “I tripped” is a big one. And, OK, I’m pretty clumsy. I trip all the time, but never have I gotten back on my feet with a pepper grinder up my ass, not even a little bit. I’m pretty sure I could tumble down all the stairs in the Empire State Building—naked, with a greased-up rolling pin in each hand and a box of candles around my neck—and still end up in the lobby with an empty rectum. Another common excuse is “I accidentally sat on it.” Implied is that you were naked at the time and this can of air freshener that just happened to be coated with Vaseline went all the way up inside”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“My neighborhood is known for its old rich people and, subsequently, its hospitals. The closest of them now had a refrigerated truck parked outside in which dead bodies were being stored.”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“I left the store determined that when and if it was ever my turn and I was the author seated at that table, I was going to engage people until they grew old, or at least thirsty. "Well, all right, then," they'd say, looking past me for the nearest exit, "let me let you go."
I would see them until they wilted.”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“Something in the early summer of 2019 had us all thinking about enormous gaping assholes.”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky

“Whichever way he intended those two faint words, I will take them and, in doing so, throw down this lance I’ve been hoisting for the past sixty years.”
― David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky