Top 393 Quotes & Sayings by Fran Lebowitz - Page 7

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. I don't want to brag, but I'm the laziest person I have ever known.

In New York we have zillions of different kinds of people, many of them hate each other, but violence based on that hatred is really uncommon here.

No one's supposed to be the president. This is not England. And it's not just the Bush family, all families designate each child as having some particular trait.

I wish that real estate were cheaper and clothes were more expensive.

We live in a culture where everyone is perfectly willing to do this [to make a lot of money], and they're just looking for the opportunity. Obviously, a person who is really dumb is not gonna make a zillion dollars. But for a person who is really smart, really smart, it's a boring pursuit. It's not endlessly fascinating.

Maybe it's superficial to exude a sense of confidence in one's clothes. But it's also integral. We have an appearance. Not all of us are beautiful. But we can appear fine looking. So we should. Feeling good about an outfit is the point at which that outfit finally becomes good.

All of television's appalling, but this is hardly a new statement.

Forcing people into a situation where they're supposed to adore each other is probably bad. But letting people get on and off the 6 train without stabbing each other, that's good.

To lose yourself in a book is the desire of the bookworm. I mean to be taken. That is my desire.

[On the writers she admires:] I prefer dead writers, because I don't see them at parties.

I'm not a Communist. I'm an American. I'm a capitalist. I mean, I'm not a very good capitalist, myself. I'm not very good at it, but it's not that I'm not for capitalism. But people who believe in things like corporate citizenship, it's idiotic. I mean, it shows you're an idiot.

If your sexual fantasies were truly of interest to others, they would no longer be fantasies.

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

There is nothing more mine than my writing, nothing I'm more proprietary about.

When we were young, we knew things. We knew basic history, even as it related to fashion. Now, when something reappears, an 18 year old has no clue that it's a revival. Despite the fact that they're almost always online they don't get references. I think that's part of why visual things are becoming so derivative.

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.

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

It is not true that there is dignity in all work. Some jobs are definitely better than others.

What people don't know is: Clothes don't really fit you unless they're made for you. Especially when you wear men's clothes, like I do. American women think that clothes fit them if they can fit into them. But that's not at all what fit means.

Democracy is an interesting, even laudable, notion and there is no question but that when compared to Communism, which is too dull, or Fascism, which is too exciting, it emerges as the most palatable form of government.

Because of the Internet everybody sees the same stuff. You can buy the clothes of New York, even if you're not living there. So I think that the accessibility, in this case, drives buying choices more than anything else.

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!"

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

The Word Lady: Most Often Used to Describe Someone You Wouldn't Want to Talk to for Even Five Minutes.

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.

A person who actually knows how to wear clothes...they would look good in any clothes. You see this especially at the Academy Awards. Even if the dresses are beautiful and expensive and important, the actresses can't always carry them. Sometimes I feel like saying to them, "Act! You know how to act, you're an actor. You're about to win an award for, I don't know, convincingly playing that Venezuelan nun who went to war. Now act like you can wear this dress.".

I have a double policy, which would also solve immigration: I would stand at the border of New York City and I would say, "You can come here to live, but you can't come here to visit."

Commercials and sometimes other guests - it's the down side of TV. Other people - it's the downside of life in general.

[On parenthood:] You can't change your mind--you know, and say, this isn't working out, let's sell.

Without these tourists, New York would be fantastic. I don't want them to come. Stay home!

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

My dream writing room would be the Imperial Library in Vienna.

Do not have your child's hair cut by a real hairdresser in a real hairdressing salon. He is, at this point, far too short to be exposed to contempt.