I can't seem to fathom that the things important to me are not important to other people as well, and so I come off sounding like a missionary, someone whose job it is to convert rather than listen.

Sedaris was raised in a suburb of Raleigh North Carolina. Sedaris and his sister Amy shared "The Talent Family" credit on the latter's short-lived sketch comedy show Exit 57 while David was a contributing writer.

Much of Sedaris's humor is autobiographical and self-deprecating and often concerns his family life his middle-class upbringing in the suburbs of Raleigh North Carolina Greek heritage jobs education drug use obsessive behaviors and his life in France London and the South Downs. He publiDavid Sedarisd his first collection of essays and short stories Barrel Fever in 1994. In 2010 he released a collection of anthropomorphic stories Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary.