Fran Lebowitz Quotes

Contrary to what many of you may imagine, a career in letters is not without its drawbacks - chief among them the unpleasant fact that one is frequently called upon to sit down and write.

Radio news is bearable. This is due to the fact that while the news is being broadcast, the disk jockey is not allowed to talk.

No one I knew talked about money. It's not an area of interest.

If you live in New York and you have a guest room, you have guests. So I think it's best not to have a guest room.

I never would start writing before midnight and I would finish at, like, seven in the morning.

When Toni Morrison said 'write the book you want to read,' she didn't mean everybody.

Instead of writing it wrong six times and then writing it right, I think it wrong six times and then write it right the seventh time.

That I am totally devoid of sympathy for, or interest in, the world of groups is directly attributable to the fact that my two greatest needs and desires - smoking cigarettes and plotting revenge - are basically solitary pursuits.

I believed passionately that Communists were a race of horned men who divided their time equally between the burning of Nancy Drew books and the devising of a plan of nuclear attack that would land the largest and most lethal bomb squarely upon the third-grade class of Thomas Jefferson School in Morristown, New Jersey.

Contrary to popular opinion, the hustle is not a new dance step - it is an old business procedure.

Vegetables are interesting but lack a sense of purpose when unaccompanied by a good cut of meat.

If you read a lot, nothing is as great as you've imagined. Venice is - Venice is better.

The 3 questions of greatest concern are:, 1) Is it attractive?, 2) Is it amusing?, 3) Does it know its place?

Communists all seem to wear small caps, a look I consider better suited to tubes of toothpaste than to people.

Whenever I am doing anything else, which is most of the time, even if it is not something like robbing a bank, I feel felonious. Writing is what I'm supposed to be doing.

Scientists are rarely to be counted among the fun people. Awkward at parties, shy with strangers, deficient in irony - they have had no choice but to turn their attention to the close study of everyday objects.

I believe in talent. I know you're not supposed to believe in that anymore because you're supposed to believe if you just work hard you can do anything. That's how you succeed, maybe. But talent is something you're born with. You cannot acquire it by working hard, and you cannot lose it by lying around either.

You don't have to lay an egg to know if it tastes good.

I'm like the laziest person who ever lived. It's amazing to me I even sit up.

It is not good form to take a Trick out unless one is so firmly established as to be able to afford being associated with someone who might at any given moment write a poem in public.

I used to rent a house in Princeton, New Jersey, and whenever people came to visit me, I would drive them past Albert Einstein's house, which is the most ordinary house in Princeton - a house, let me assure you, that now a salesman wouldn't live in. I'd always say, "That was Albert Einstein's house." And they'd say, "What do you mean? Why would Albert Einstein live in a little house like that?" And I'd always say to people, "Because he didn't care!"

People are constantly telling me, whether they are friends who feel sorry for me, because I can't find a place to live, or real estate agents, "You can't afford an apartment the size you need with this many books. Why don't you just put some of your books in storage?" And I always say the same thing: "What if I told you I had four children? Would you say, 'You just can't afford to house four children. Why don't you just put two of them in storage?'" That's how I feel.

Being a woman is of special interest only to aspiring male transsexuals. To actual women, it is simply a good excuse not to play football.

Citizen's Band radio renders one accessible to a wide variety of people from all walks of life. It should not be forgotten that all walks of life include conceptual artists, dry cleaners, and living poets.

You can't go around hoping that most people have sterling moral characters. The most you can hope for is that people will pretend that they do.

I'm not interested in being a wife. I'm interested in being an empress.

A book is not supposed to be a mirror. It's supposed to be a door.

There is one thing that has disappeared, not just from the U.S. but from the entire world, is the idea of ever being embarrassed by anything.

In the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over communism. In this country, capitalism triumphed over democracy.

If you removed all of the homosexuals and homosexual influence from what is generally regarded as American culture, you would pretty much be left with Let's Make a Deal.

There are some great writers who are great talkers, but there are more great writers who are not great talkers. People seem to think there is some connection between talking and writing, but I love to talk and if there were some connection between the two of them I would be the most prolific writer in the history of the world.

I write so slowly, I could write with my own blood and not hurt myself.

The good thing about being in someone else's apartment is it's so much easier to leave than it is to get someone out.

I have the exact opposite problem of every writer I've ever met: Every writer I've ever met writes things that are too long, and they have to edit them down.

Smoking is, as far as I'm concerned, the entire point of being an adult.

I'm such a slow writer I have no need for anything as fast as a word processor. I don't need anything so snappy. I write so slowly that I could write in my own blood without hurting myself.

[Children are] like talking animals. Their consciousness is so different from ours that they constitute a different species. They don't have to be particularly interesting children; just the fact that they are children is sufficient. They don't know what anything is, so they have to make it up. No matter how dull they are, they still have to figure things out for themselves.

The theater itself is so archaic and old fashioned, that it doesn't really matter to me whether it's on Avenue D or at the Helen Hayes Theater. What's the difference? It's still a very nostalgic form. Also, it means you're knowingly walking into a room where there's actors. I feel it's very embarrassing. Because, you know, they're right there. You always think like, they can see you, and I think it's mortifying, frankly, and I hate to sit near the front, where you feel they actually might see you. It's too ... it's too live.

Cheese that is required by law to append the word food to its title does not go well with red wine or fruit.

Scientists - the crowd that for dash and style make the general public look like the Bloomsbury set.

There are some short essays that are very grave, and most contemporary novels are lighter than air.

There were a zillion bad jobs. That doesn't exist any more. I mean, I could wake up one afternoon with zero money and know that by the end of the day, I would have money.

People always say "pop culture." As if we have some high culture to distinguish it from.

In fact, we live in a culture where intelligence, exceptional or not, is reviled.

I think writing for me has always been a matter of fear. Writing is fear and not writing is fear. I am afraid of writing and then I'm afraid of not writing.

This idea that people have to love and understand each other is absurd. It's not human nature.

Modern science was largely conceived of as an answer to the servant problem and ... it is generally practiced by those who lack a flair for conversation.

Most writers write too much. I have the exact opposite problem. I feel I could write almost anything in a paragraph. I have a natural ability to condense, and so I often think, "Are you kidding me? Five thousand words? How am I gonna make 5,000 words out of that?"

People have been cooking and eating for thousands of years, so if you are the very first to have thought of adding fresh lime juice to scalloped potatoes try to understand that there must be a reason for this.

When you leave New York, you are astonished at how clean the rest of the world is. Clean is not enough.

I hate money. It is boring and it is arithmetic. The two things I hate the most.

There are too many books. The books are terrible. And this is because you have been taught to have self-esteem.

It's very important when making a friend to check and see if they have a private plane. People think a good personality trait in a friend is kindness or a sense of humor. No, in a friend a good personality trait is a Gulfstream.

When I fly, I'm never afraid the plane is going to crash. But there have often been times when I was afraid it wouldn't crash. I was just afraid it was going to circle O'Hare for the rest of my life.

Luckily when you drive a cab there are two things: You don't have a boss in the cab with you, and you are not facing the people that you are making money from.

If there were, say, only 10 percent of the hotels that exist now, there would be all these apartments for people who live in New York, as opposed to people visiting New York. And then all this junk in the theater, we would no longer need the kind of stuff that tourists like.

[On not reading newspapers:] If something important happens, your mother calls you.

Bread that must be sliced with an axe is bread that is too nourishing.

When you reach a certain age, suddenly there are lots of people younger than you, which is really startling.

I believe that at birth everyone gets the capacity for a certain amount of drugs and alcohol, everyone the same, you can do it all between 15 and 19 like I did, or you can stretch it out over 70 years.

polite conversation is rarely either

Being poor is like being a child. Being rich is like being an adult: you get to do whatever you want. Everyone is nice when they have to be; rich people are nice when they feel like it.

Smoking is, if not my life, then at least my hobby. I love to smoke. Smoking is fun. Smoking is cool. Smoking is, as far as I am concerned, the entire point of being an adult. It makes growing up genuinely worthwhile. I am quite well aware of the hazards of smoking. Smoking is not a healthful pastime, it is true. Smoking is indeed no bracing dip in the ocean, no strenuous series of calisthenics, no two laps around the reservoir. On the other hand, smoking has to its advantage the fact that is a quiet pursuit. Smoking is, in effect a dignified sport.

I hate writing. I will do anything to avoid it. The only way I could write less was if I was dead.

How do you know if your child is a writer? Your obstetrician holds his stethoscope to your abdomen and only hears excuses.

If, while watching the sun set on a used-car lot in Los Angeles, you are struck by the parallels between this image and the inevitable fate of humanity, do not, under any circumstances, write it down.

You can be nasty when you are young, but you really have to be older to achieve bitterness.

Should novels generally be 600 pages? No, they should not. Half of writing, maybe 3/4 of writing, is editing. This seems to be a thing that has not gotten through to them. It's my impression that you could get rid of half of most of these books. These people are not good enough to be this long, but they're apparently also not good enough to be shorter.

They know you can't get people to stop smoking, so they develop a system of informants. That's the whole idea of second-hand smoke, you know. Make second-hand smoke dangerous and turn everybody against smokers. Then they say you can't even smoke in a bar
a bar!
because bartenders have a right to a smoke-free "workspace." Ah, bartenders, those health nuts ...

It's very disheartening to encounter a fearful twenty-one year old. They haven't earned the right to be that afraid. It's not like we're living in war-torn Bosnia or something.

Science has done absolutely nothing about noise. The worst design flaw in the human body is that you can't close your ears. The reason you can't close your ears is, if a lion was coming, you had to wake up. Today no lions are coming. Beeping trucks are coming. I read the other day that the guy who invented the beep when trucks go backward, he died. I thought: Of course-he dies, I have to listen to it.

Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy

You should make it hard on yourself to write so you're easier to read.

Children are the most desirable opponents at scrabble as they are both easy to beat and fun to cheat.

I've never had the experience of being edited and never will.

..[l]et me assure you: the world is full of mediocre men who are stunning successes.

Girls who put out are tramps. Girls who don't are ladies. This is, however, a rather archaic usage of the word. Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who doesn't put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady. What you have probably found is a Lesbian.

Never judge a cover by its book.

Things that people will say to me, mostly, is that you shouldn't have all these books. It's too expensive.

When I'm supposed to be writing I clean my apartment, take my clothes to the laundry, get organized, make lists, do the dishes. I would never do a dish unless I had to write.

The conversational overachiever is someone whose grasp exceeds his reach. This is possible but not attractive.

I've always been old at heart.

Nothing lasts. So it's my belief, yes, I know a lot of the things that we liked didn't last, but maybe things we don't like, they're also not going to last. There has been progress in my lifetime. There are certainly things that are better than when I was young, and there are things that are worse. New York City, it's worse. There's no question.

You sit or stand in the subway, and you look around - I do, because I don't have a phone so I'm not playing a game - and you see people.

Think before you speak. Read before you think.

Educational television should be absolutely forbidden. It can only lead to unreasonable disappointment when your child discovers that the letters of the alphabet do not leap up out of books and dance around with royal-blue chickens.

When I was young, boys didn't type.

I love being in love. I don't think anything compares with it, though I consider it very disruptive.

Tolerance is really a better thing than understanding. Because it doesn't agitate against human nature.

China is not a great idea: capitalism and a dictator. It's like the two worst possible things you could imagine together. It's a very bad idea.

The second I learned to read in first grade, when I was 5, I preferred it to life. And I still do.

Children are much less annoying [than adults] and they never start trends.

Anti-smoking sentiment has replaced middle-class morality entirely. The smoker has taken the place of the homosexual. Today you hear people say things about smokers that used to be said about homosexuals
they pollute the environment; you don't want them around your children ...

I must take issue with the term 'a mere child', for it has been my invariable experience that the company of a mere child is infinitely preferable to that of a mere adult.

Television turned out to be exactly as bad as the most irritating and pedantic intellectuals of the '50s said it was going to be.

Sarcasm: what they have in New York instead of jacuzzis.

A salad is not a meal, it is a style.

The effect of AIDS was like a war in a minute country. Like, in World War I, a whole generation of Englishmen died all at once. And with AIDS, a whole generation of gay men died practically all at once, within a couple of years.

What I can't be is monogamous. That tends to upset people. I just don't like domestic life.

We are all born with a rut radar. Mine is finely wired, a little oversensitive maybe. Perhaps just a bit hyperactive. Twenty steady boyfriends before turning 16, a new best friend 12 times a year, switched college majors every time I met someone who seemed exactly like the sort of person I really, really wanted to be. I'm not fickle. I'm just never there yet.