Top 393 Quotes & Sayings by Fran Lebowitz - Page 4

Any child who cannot do long division by himself does not deserve to smoke.

A great many people in Los Angeles are on special diets that restrict their intake of synthetic foods. The reason for this appears to be a widely held belief that organically grown fruits and vegetables make the cocaine work faster.

To me the outdoors is what you must pass through in order to get from your apartment into a taxicab.

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.

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.

When I saw a phone on a plane for the first time, I panicked ... I thought people were going to call me.

I used to love to write. As a child I used to write all the time. I loved to write up until the second I got my first professional writing job. It turns out it's not that I hate to write. I hate, simply, to work.

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

The best fame is a writer's fame. It's enough to get a table at a good restaurant, but not enough to get you interrupted when you eat.

for someone such as myself, who is kind of feckless and immature, it's better to have rich friends than to be rich yourself, because then you have wealth without the responsibility. You get to go to their houses, and you get acquainted with a level of furniture that you cannot provide for yourself. Furniture, I think is the most important attribute of rich people.

I do not think everyone is created equal. In fact, I know they're not. [The Constitution] means that everyone should have the same laws as everyone else. It doesn't mean that everyone's as smart or as cute or as lucky as everyone else.

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.

I just can't smile at people for money.

The French probably invented the very notion of discretion. It's not that they feel that what you don't know won't hurt you; they feel that what you don't know won't hurt them. To the French lying is simply talking.

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.

I hate all jobs. I've never had a job I liked.

If food did not exist it would be well-nigh impossible to get certain types off the phone, as one would be unable to say, 'Look, I've got to run but let's have dinner sometime soon.'

I'm not a nervous person. I'm not afraid to be on TV. I'm only afraid when I write. When I'm at my desk I feel like most people would feel if they went on TV.

Once you go outside your natural audience, there are tons of people that don't like you.

I never wanted to have any extra money, if it meant having to have any extra work.

When I was a kid, the people of my generation didn't want to be writers, they wanted to be rock stars. Rock and roll was not just entertainment, it was the center of people's lives. When I was young, it was exciting and interesting.

I drove a cab. But all the girls I knew when I was young who had to work - there were rich girls - but the ones who had to work were waitresses. Because you could always get shifts in a restaurant.

those who use the word 'lifestyle' are rarely in possession of either.

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

I have always preferred the company of older people. No one in the history of the world has had less interest in the young than I do. I am not interested in what young people are thinking. They're thinking less than old people, of course. I mean, what could they be thinking? And what are they doing? They're doing the same stupid things you did.

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

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

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.

Favorite animal: steak.

...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.

There's no such thing as advice to the lovelorn. If they took advice, they wouldn't be lovelorn. You see, advice and lovelorn don't go together. Because advice makes love sound like some sort of cognitive activity, but we know that it isn't. We all know that it's some sort of horrible chemical reaction over which we have absolutely no control. And that's why advice doesn't work.

I don't like to read nonfiction. To me, fact is something I can look up.

Never allow your child to call you by your first name. He hasn't known you long enough.

By the time everyone catches up with you, you're bored.

Life was certainly more entertaining when people were indulging their vices as opposed to going to meetings to indulge in a new vice: discussing their innermost thoughts in public.

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

I had to go on TV with the president of the Catholic League, which is not an official organization at all, just a lot of Catholics, or maybe it's just this guy. He demanded to de-fund art completely and argued that taxpayers should not pay for it. I said people who represent the Catholic Church shouldn't talk about taxes.

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.

Local television shows do not, in general, supply make-up artists. The exception to this is Los Angeles, an unusually generous city in this regard, since they also provide this service for radio appearances.

Twenty-four-hour room service generally refers to the length of time that it takes for the club sandwich to arrive. This is indeeddisheartening, particularly when you've ordered scrambled eggs.

I have a hard time writing. Most writers have a hard time writing. I have a harder time than most because I'm lazier than most. [...] The other problem I have is fear of writing. The act of writing puts you in confrontation with yourself, which is why I think writers assiduously avoid writing. [...] Not writing is more of a psychological problem than a writing problem. All the time I'm not writing I feel like a criminal. [...] It's horrible to feel felonious every second of the day. Especially when it goes on for years. It's much more relaxing actually to work.

Civilised adults do not take apple juice with dinner.

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

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.

There are certain relationships I think I'm great at: I'm the world's greatest daughter. I'm a great relative. I believe I'm a great friend.

Never judge a cover by its book.

If you feel the urge to write, just lie down and read a book: it will pass.

Whenever someone accuses someone of being a racist - which is rare, you have to admit, considering how much racism there is - there is an incredible outrage. I realized that we live in an environment that it seems to be worse to call someone a racist than to be one.

I woke up at five o'clock in the morning with the whole first paragraph in my head. Now, this just shows what a slothful person I am: I tried to go back to sleep.

Presently it appears that people are mainly concerned with being well rested. Those capable of uninterrupted sleep are much admired. Unconsciousness is in great demand. This is the day of the milligram.

Communism requires of its adherents that they arise early and participate in a strenuous round of calisthenics. To someone who wishes that cigarettes came already lit the thought of such exertion at an hour when decent people are just nodding off is thoroughly abhorrent.

Children are rarely in the position to lend one a truly interesting sum of money. There are, however, exceptions, and such children are an excellent addition to any party.

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

New Yorkers, we've seen Donald Trump for, like, 30 years; we know who he is. So he wasn't a surprise to me.

The main symptom of falling in love is that you lose your intellectual prowess.

I used to buy all my shirts at Brooks Brothers, but that was completely ruined about 20 years ago. They discontinued the shirt I liked. If I had only known this - I mean, if you're going to discontinue an item that thousands and thousands of people buy, announce it. Say, 'We will no longer be making our excellent Brooks Brothers cotton shirts that we made for 5,000 years. We're going to change them in some awful way. We're alerting you so you can buy a lifetime supply.' Shirts don't go bad, they're not peaches.

I walk a lot in New York, not for the exercise but to get from place to place, and because it's the way of having the least contact with human beings.

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.

I don't care if New York avoided bankruptcy by substituting tourism for the garment business.