David Rakoff Quotes

Not being funny doesn't make you a bad person. Not having a sense of humor does.

Well into adulthood, writing has never gotten easier. It still only ever begins badly, and there are no guarantees that this is not the day when the jig is finally up.

Altruism is innate, but it's not instinctual. Everybody's wired for it, but a switch has to be flipped.

Being a stranger was like being dead, and brought to mind how, in a book he had read that most folks misunderstood one common state: The flip side of love is indifference, not hate.

We’re creatures of contact regardless of whether/ we kiss or we wound. Still, we must come together.

There is nothing so cleansing or reassuring as a vicarious sadness.

Central to living a life that is good, is a life that's forgiving.

I am neither spontaneous nor ready for anything.

Youth is not wasted on the young, it is perpetrated on the young.

But if one's dreams having to come true was the only referendum on whether they were beautiful, or worth dreaming, well then, no one would wish for anything. And that would be so much sadder.

Unfortunately, there's no greater rhyme or reason as to why it would be me. And since there is no answer as to why me, it's not a question I feel really entitled to ask.

I have managed to establish an identity that is based on my internal self, and for that I feel tremendously lucky.

Just think, the shoes I wouldn’t be caught dead in might actually turn out to be the shoes I am caught dead in.

In my brief glimpse of what is to come I realize how little I care to witness it. I have seen the future and I'm fairly relieved to say, it looks nothing like me.

In the window, I fantasize... about providing grown-ups and children alike with the greatest gift of all: insight.

One of the marks of a life well lived has to be reaching a state of finally getting it, of not needing more, and of being able to sign off with something approaching peace of mind.

Almost any age is better than twenty-two.

There's nothing particularly wrong with being more pessimistic than optimistic. Optimism is broad-based, non-detail-oriented thinking; pessimism is detail-oriented thinking.

I do not go outdoors. Not more than I have to. As far as I'm concerned, the whole point of living in New York City is indoors. You want greenery? Order the spinach.

Simplicity, it seems, has always been wasted on those who simply cannot appreciate it

New York is breaking my heart. I’ve often said that it’s like having a really interesting boyfriend suddenly becoming really, really into wine, and having to have endless conversations about it.

I had a tumor. But it was great.

I am going to the bad place, as is my wont.

I have so little control over the act of writing that it's all I can do to remain conscious.

A half roll of Life Savers fused to the pockets, And in yet another, a lone unwrapped mintHad bundled itself in a stole of gray lint.

When you're making something, you're in a different state. You go into a deep level of concentration, to the point where you're not self-conscious anymore, it's just flowing out of you.