David Sedaris Quotes

I kept wanting to push my image as validity; I wanted to see my portrait on a wall and know it was okay.

I am a writer and always was; being a writer is an integral part of my identity. Being published, being well regarded, is a component of that identity.

Am I really cool? You're telling me I'm cool? Well, that's good to hear.

We think of ourselves as our titles or our jobs or our position in a family. We depend on being praised by others. But something happens when that praise is undermined.

Why can't I be the adorable one?

For young boys, just to know you exist in any capacity is a strong feeling.

If I don't measure up as an American writer, at least leave me to my delusion.

I would like to think people would take me seriously.

Yes, I'm a personality. I accept that. O.K.? I understand it. But I'm a personality with credentials.

More people know who I am, but I don't feel any different within myself - I think that's the main thing.

I was never going to be the one to get recognition because of my looks.

This is not me, WWE doesn't define who Ashley is.

Other people started taking me seriously before I took myself seriously.

Self-esteem is not based on itself.

I really cannot know whether I am or am not the Genius you are pleased to call me, but I am very willing to put up with the mistake, if it be one. It is a title dearly enough bought by most men, to render it endurable, even when not quite clearly made out, which it never can be till the Posterity, whose decisions are merely dreams to ourselves, has sanctioned or denied it, while it can touch us no further.

Truth be told, when you start your career out as a clown, you don't consider yourself a writer.

If you have to tell them who you are, you aren't anybody.

Some people say I'm a pussy. I say, you are what you eat.

Don't allow anybody to make you feel that you're nobody.

It is your attitude about yourself that a man will adopt.

I’m a jeans size up from where I usually am, but there’s nothing about it that freaks me out. I’ve always said that sexy is having a really strong sense of yourself and never taking yourself too seriously.

You have to be really comfortable with yourself because people are going to tell you that you're eyes are too brown or you're this or you're that. And if you're not comfortable with yourself, you could get pretty freaked out.

It was not the case that one thing morphed into another, child into woman. You remained the person you were before things happened to you. The person you were when you thought a small cut string could determine the course of a year. You also became the person to whom certain things happened. Who passed into the realm where you no longer questioned the notion of being trapped in one form. You took on that form, that identity, hoped for its recognition from others, hoped someone would love it and you.

Take your focus off how others see you. Cease being obsessed with the need to impress your friends and your foes. Keep your concern on the vision you see in the mirror. Don’t allow the approval of others to obstruct your view of you.

I'm the type of person who feels I have to prove myself first.