Fran Lebowitz Quotes

It's very important who the president of the United States is. America is a great idea, so that's why it's a great country.

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.

My favorite way to wake up is to have a certain French movie star whisper to me softly at two-thirty in the afternoon that if I want to get to Sweden in time to pick up my Nobel Prize for Literature, I had better ring for breakfast. This occurs rather less often than one might wish.

The telephone is a good way to talk to people without having to offer them a drink.

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

Romantic love is mental illness. But it's a pleasurable one. It's a drug. It distorts reality, and that's the point of it. It would be impossible to fall in love with someone that you really saw.

In Rome people spend most of their time having lunch. And they do it very well - Rome is unquestionably the lunch capital of the world.

Your responsibility as a parent is not as great as you might imagine. You need not supply the world with the next conqueror of disease or major motion picture star. If your child simply grows up to be someone who does not use the word "collectible" as a noun, you can consider yourself an unqualified success.

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.

Albert Einstein didn't care where he lived. Albert Einstein was a genius. Albert Einstein wasn't getting lost in the master bedroom, he was lost in thought.

The Italians are the most civilized people. And they're very warm. Basically, they're Jews with great architecture.

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

Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass.

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

Technological innovation has done great damage ... to eating habits. Food is now available in such unpleasant forms that one frequently finds smoking between courses to be an aid to digestion.

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

It is not true that there is dignity in all work. Some jobs are definitely better than others.... People who have good jobs are happy, rich, and well dressed. People who have bad jobs are unhappy, poor and use meat extenders. Those who seek dignity in the type of work that compels them to help hamburgers are certain to be disappointed.

Will power is not telling anybody you quit smoking.

What starts love is your ability to stupefy and blind yourself to the point of being able to fall in love. What stops it is waking up.

It is, in fact, safe to assume that, more often than not, life imitates craft, for who among us can say that our experience does not more closely resemble a macramé plant holder than it does a painting by Seurat. When it comes to art, life is the biggest copycat in the matter of the frame.

The first time I ever saw platform shoes in the '70s, I knew they'd been revived from the '40s, and I felt sickened. And for whatever reason, they keep getting revived. They've come back four times. I wish we could let them die. They want to die. They were horrible then, they're horrible now.

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

Raisins are a thing that lasts, they come in small boxes, and you always feel like eating raisins, even at six in the morning. A raisin is always an appropriate snack.

Special-interest publications should realize that if they are attracting enough advertising and readers to make a profit, the interest is not so special.

Romantic love is mental illness. But it's a pleasurable one. It's a drug. It distorts reality, and that's the point of it. It would be impossible to fall in love with someone that you really saw. The second you meet someone that you're going to fall in love with you deliberately become a moron. You do this in order to fall in love, because it would be impossible to fall in love with any human being if you actually saw them for what they are.

Andy Warhol made fame more famous.

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

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.

People who get married because they're in love make a ridiculous mistake. It makes much more sense to marry your best friend. You like your best friend more than anyone you're ever going to be in love with. You dont choose your best friend because they have a cute nose.

Spilling your guts is just exactly as charming as it sounds.

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.

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.

Cold soup is a very tricky thing and it is a rare hostess who can carry it off. More often than not the dinner guest is left with the impression that had he only come a little earlier he could have gotten it while it was still hot.

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

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.

No one earns $100 million. You steal $100 million.

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.

Not writing is probably the most exhausting profession I've ever encountered.

Sleep is death without the responsibility.

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

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. The rigors of learning how to do long division have been a traditional part of childhood, just like learning to smoke. In fact, as far as I am concerned, the two go hand in hand. Any child who cannot do long division by himself does not deserve to smoke.

The great thing about New Jersey is that it's close to New York.

Lifestyle. Not a word at all, really - rather a wordette. A genuine case of more is less. ... the word life and the word style are, except in rare cases (and chances are that you're not of them), mutually exclusive.

Never judge a cover by its book.

Not writing is probably the most exhausting profession I've ever encountered. It takes it out of you. It's very psychically wearing not to write - I mean if you're supposed to be writing.

Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he's buying.

If people don't want to listen to you, what makes you think they want to hear from your sweater?

Randomness scares people. Religion is a way to explain randomness.