Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

DAVID SEDARIS: I don't feel like I'm the kind of person who

writes because the world needs to know what I have to say.

I'm not an important person.

I'm not a terribly bright person.

There are plenty of people who are funnier than I am.

But I never let that stop me.

You have to be on fire you have to be burning.

HOST: Please welcome to the stage David Sedaris.

DAVID SEDARIS: I don't mean burning with the desire

to make money, or to want to be a writer,

or to want to be published, on fire for the very idea of it,

fueled by it.

You have to be on fire with the idea of words.

I'm David Sedaris.

And this is my MasterClass.

You're so privileged to be a writer.

You're so privileged.

Because, normal people, something bad happens to them.

And there's nothing they can do with it except feel bad,

or complain, or press charges.

When I first moved to Paris, I understood--

I went to French school.

And I'd been in school for maybe a month.

And then I was at the point where

I could understand maybe one out of every 25

words that was said to me.

So I have kidney stones.

So I was by myself in Paris.

And I had a kidney stone.

And I looked up hospitals in the phone book.

And I went to the hospital.

And they gave me drugs and waited with me

until the kidney stone passed.

But they said, we'd like to do some follow-up tests,

can you come by next week?

So I went by next week.

And a nurse took me to a dressing room.

And she said, strip to your underpants.

I had a book of medical French.

So I knew that phrase.

Strip to your underpants and then [NONSENSE]..

And I said, what?

And she said, strip to your underpants and then [NONSENSE]..

You can only ask "what" three times, right.

And I used up my third time.

And then I went into this room.

And I stripped to my underpants.

And there was the door I came in.

And then there were two other doors.

So I opened one of them.

And there was a waiting room.

So I thought, oh, I guess she wants

me to sit in the waiting room.

So I sat in the waiting room.

And I'm not talking about boxer shorts.

I had briefs on, right?

And they weren't new.

So I sat in this room in my underpants.

And a fully-dressed couple came into the room.

And I thought, oh, my god, maybe I

didn't come through the right door.

And then more people came into the room.

And it would be one thing if you were in the United States

and they were wearing t-shirts that

say "it's not going to lick itself"

and a pair of gym shorts, right?

But these were Parisians.

And they were not only dressed but beautifully dressed.

And I'm sitting there in my underpants

as the room fills up with people.

And I thought, one day, this will be funny.

One day, I can write about this.

And then the nurse came in and said, Mr. Sedaris, what are you

doing?

I told you to put a robe on, come with me.

But I was afraid.

I thought, you know, if I get up and I go back

through that door, I'll look like an idiot.

I'll look like I misunderstood.

So to save face, I'm just going to sit here and just pretend

that everything's supposed to be this way.

But I was very fortunate to be a writer

so I could write about it.

I don't know what people who aren't writers do when--

I went to a hospital, I went to a doctor in London recently.

And he said, you have cancer.

And this is before he'd done any tests.

And he told me I had cancer.

And then he stuck a flexible metal rod up the whole

in my penis.

And I thought, I can write about this.

And again, I felt bad for people who aren't writers.

I don't have cancer.

He was completely wrong about that.

So I got to write about that, as well.

Everything's funny eventually.

You know, sometimes it takes a while.

But the day will come when you're

able to laugh about anything.

And so for me, I don't care to write something that's serious.

I want to get laughs when I write something.

As you get older, these things happen more and more often.

You know, you fall down and you think, well, OK,

I can write about it.

So you should celebrate if you get fired from a job,

or if your house catches on fire,

or you lose a limb that's not your writing arm.

Make the most of it.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

A lot of people ask, what are your writing rituals?

What do you do when you sit down to write every day?

And every day, I have a platter of lasagna on my--

wouldn't that be just the worst advice

to eat a platter of lasagna every day?

MAN: AV mark.

I feel very grateful that I know a lot of funny people.

My sister Amy is terribly funny.

My sister Lisa is funny.

I feel like most of my friends are funny.

Hugh is not funny in the least bit.

But he's a good straight man to play off of.

So that's always a way to get laughs,

is to quote funny people, right?

Another way is to put yourself down.

Because you're allowed to insult yourself

as much as you want without--

well, there was a woman who was at a women's comedy festival.

I believe it was in England.

And she was told she was not allowed

to make fun of her body.

They told her going into it that she was not

allowed to do that, which I don't think that's fair at all.

I think if you're making fun of yourself,

everything's fair game.

Exaggeration is a way to get laughs.

And I think now that there are a lot of people

who are more inclined to say, hey,

you're not allowed to do that.

But, yeah, you completely are.

When you're writing humor, it's right there in your tool box.

And you're entitled to use it.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

My boyfriend, Hugh, grew up in Africa.

And he was in Somalia during the coup, right, riding in a truck

with people shooting at him.

Now, he's pretty lucky to have had that experience.

He's not a writer.

But most people aren't going to have adventure

like that in their life, right?

But maybe you go to an orthodontist.

And you feel like your orthodontist

is coming on to you.

Write about that.

Maybe your mother, when you were growing up,

paid special attention to a friend of yours,

and you got jealous.

And you thought, oh, maybe mom wishes that Sheila were

her daughter instead of me.

You can write about that.

I feel so sad for people who feel

like their lives aren't worthy.

That's just the absolute worst.

I feel everyone has a story to tell.

Everybody has an interesting story to tell.

I met a woman.

And she said, I feel like we had the same father.

And I said, was your dad cheap?

And she said, my dad was so cheap

that when I was in high school, people would roll our house

and he made us save the toilet paper and use it.

And if it got rained on, he made us dry it out on racks.

And then friends would come over and we

would have these hefty bags in our bathroom filled

with this kind of weirdly-textured, dried-out

toilet paper.

And I thought, wow, I wish my dad had done that.

It was such a great--

now, this person could easily have said,

oh, we grew up in the suburbs and my life is just--

it's nothing you haven't seen on television.

You just have to take a step back and look at your life.

And there are all sorts of things there.

Maybe you throw out the first three things

that come to mind, right?

Because those just have been done to death, right?

But maybe it's the fourth thing on that list.

Maybe it's the eighth thing on that list.

When you're talking to people, notice what people laugh at.

If you tell a story, and somebody laughs, and then

they sort of ask you some follow-up questions,

that's a pretty good indication that that might be a good thing

to write about.

Carry a notebook.

Make note of those times.

I do.

There are plenty of times I hadn't thought

to write about something.

But I find myself in a situation and I'm talking about it.

And it gets a nice laugh.

And I'm so grateful, pull out my notebook, write it down.

And then maybe it works.

But even if it doesn't work, it goes

onto a list of possible stories to write later on.

But please don't feel like your life is meaningless

or that you're not special.

You know, you just haven't found it yet.

Or maybe no one's recognized it in you yet.

But it's not what happened in your life.

It's how you write about it.