Last Monday, David Sedaris was granted an honorary doctorate in fine arts from Oberlin College in Ohio. Then, he gave the keynote address for the school's 2018 commencement ceremony. It was, of course, perfectly hilarious and full of spot-on, no-holds-barred advice for the new grads.
On May 24, just prior to giving the speech, the humorist and essayist appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert (video above) and discussed how he picked the advice he was going to share, "Well, it kind of makes you wonder, 'What do I know? What wisdom do I have?' So I started keeping a list of my wisdom. Part of it is, you have to be really careful about scented candles. There's really only two kinds worth having… Diptyque or Trudon."
That was the first piece of advice he shared with Oberlin's graduating class. There are seven more, all gems, including "Be yourself. Unless 'yourself' is an asshole." Watch.
Also, Sedaris has a new book. It's called Calypso.