Title SeinLanguage

Author Jerry Seinfeld

Year Published 1993

Kind of Book Humor/essays

How strongly I recommend it 5/10 

My Impressions

This book is mostly Seinfeld's stand-up bits from the first few seasons of Seinfeld. Unless you like analyzing jokes with a pencil (which I do) just watch the show.

Date Read June 2021

Practical Takeaways

  • If you have a couple of good friends, treasure them like gold

Favorite Quotes

"I like the way [a bookstore] breaks down into fiction and nonfiction. In other words, these people are lying, and these people are telling the truth. That's the way the world should be." pg.1

 

"There definitely seems to be an age gap in the hiring policy at most movie theaters. They never hire anyone between the ages of 15 and 80." pg.137

 

"What's amazing to me about the library is that here's a place where you can go in, you take out any book you want, they just give it to you and say, 'Please just bring it back when you're done.' It reminds me of this pathetic friend everybody had when they were a little kid that would let you borrow any of his stuff if you would just be his friend. That's what the library is, it's a government-funded pathetic friend." pg.143

 

[On birds flying into mirrors] "I'd always think, 'Even if he thinks the mirror is another room, why doesn't he a least try to avoid hitting the other parakeet?" pg.160

 

[On bugs]

"Bugs never hang out. They're always on their way somewhere. You put your hand in front of them, no problem, they go someplace else." pg.161

 

"My parents live in Florida now. They moved there last year. They didn't want to move to Florida, but, they're in their seventies and that's the law." pg.173

 

"Superman, yeah thanks for saving my life, but did you have to come through my wall? I'm renting here." pg.60

 

Big Ideas

  • A bookstore is one of the only pieces of physical evidence we have that people are still thinking

  • Men are homophobic because they have weak sales resistance and are afraid that they'll be talked into it

  • If Alien's came to Earth they would think that Dogs are the masters of humans

Because

  • Humans pick up the dog's poop and tend to their every need

  • When you're in your 30s you don't make new friends, you stick with the friends you already have

  • Bugs never hang out and stand still, they're always on their way somewhere