David Sedaris

I haven't got the slightest idea how to change people, but still I keep a long list of prospective candidates just in case I should ever figure it out.

They were nothing like the French people I had imagined. If anything, they were too kind, too generous and too knowledgable in the fields of plumbing and electricity.

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 would've done anything to work with Satyajit Ray.

The flaw of an amateur is to assume what's in our head is what's on the page.

It's good to like yourself, and that only comes from hard work, from doing. But vanity is dangerous; it can trip you badly.