Top highlights from 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, Im 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.
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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.
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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.
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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 shed seen earlier in the week who had pushed a dildo too far up his ass. The door had shut behind it, so hed tried fishing it out with a coat hanger. When that proved the wrong tool for the job, hed 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 ballsand they always concoct some incredible story to explain their predicament. I tripped is a big one. And, OK, Im 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. Im pretty sure I could tumble down all the stairs in the Empire State Buildingnaked, with a greased-up rolling pin in each hand and a box of candles around my neckand 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
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Lisa, youre 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, didnt 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 minutethe
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If you think Im putting my bra back on for this bullshit, you
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Something in the early summer of 2019 had us all thinking about enormous gaping assholes.
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Now I think that guys who wear baseball caps with their sunglasses perched on the brims have guns, ifand this is importantthe lenses of those sunglasses are mirrored or fade from orange to yellow, like a tequila sunrise.
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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.
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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.
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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 meit'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.
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Whichever way he intended those two faint words, I will take them and, in doing so, throw down this lance Ive been hoisting for the past sixty years.
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At twenty-two, you are built for poverty and rejection. And you know why? Because youre 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 cant see it now because youre comparing yourself to the person next to you, or two rows up. But you are stunning.
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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.
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In America, the talk now is all about white privilege, but regardless of your race, theres American privilege as well, or at least Western privilege. It means that when youre in Dakar or Minsk your embassy is open and staffed, and you dont need to hand out bribes in order to get
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what you need. That spark you feel when an idea comes to youThis could work. I can actually make this happen!is Western privilege as well. It may not be certainty, but its hope, and if you think thats worthless, try living in a place where nobody has it. Worse still, try getting a decent hotel room there.
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