Fran Lebowitz Quotes

Fran Lebowitz offers sharp, witty takes on education, politics and children that will make you smile and think.

59 quotes

1. I never met anyone who didn't have a very smart child. What happens to these children, you wonder, when they reach adulthood?

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. I doubt there's ever been a true thing said on Fox. Maybe the weather report, maybe not.

5. Most of my news, I get from the radio news stations. One of the stations' advertising lines is 'Give us 22 minutes, we'll give you the world.' In 22 minutes, they just have time for the headlines, so they can only really tell you what happened - which, by the way, is the news. They tell you how many people were killed in Iraq today, but they don't then bring on some Republican senator to explain to you how that's good. Or, on the contrary, they don't bring in a bunch of Democrats to tell you why it's bad. They just tell you what happened. That's the news. I am capable of analyzing my own news. What makes these people qualified to analyze my news for me? No matter what side they're on, I never agree with them.

6. Take away a man's actual sense of manhood - which is conventionally based on the ability to work, to earn money, to be self-sufficient, to provide for children - and you've got to give them something else. And they did. This hideous religion that's all over the country - these huge church-malls - that's what substitutes for these lost towns. But that's not a town. That's a cult. A town is diverse, in a real way, not in this fake way we have now. A community is a butcher and a doctor, a minister, a town troublemaker. A 'community' is not a bunch of people united by some grievance. That's just self-righteousness - incredibly dangerous and antidemocratic. People have become so rigid; their opinions seem to them like themselves. When that happens (and it has happened) people can't change their minds. If you are identified by your opinions - if that is the very basis of yourself - how can you change your mind?

7. The terrible state of public education has paid huge dividends in ignorance. Huge. We now have a country that can be told blatant lies - easily checkable, blatant lies - and I'm not talking about the covert workings of the CIA. When we have a terrorist attack, on September 11, 2001 with 19 men - 15 of them are Saudis - and five minutes later the whole country thinks they're from Iraq - how can you have faith in the public? This is an easily checkable fact. The whole country is like the O.J. Simpson jurors.

8. All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in fact, barely presentable. The most common error made in matters of appearance is the belief that one should disdain the superficial and let the true beauty of one's soul shine through. If there are places on your body where this is a possibility, you are not attractive - you are leaking.

9. Rome is a very loony city in every respect. One needs but spend an hour or two there to realize that Fellini makes documentaries.

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

11. I love sleep because it is both pleasant and safe to use. Pleasant because one is in the best possible company and safe because sleep is the consummate protection against the unseemliness that is the invariable consequence of being awake. What you don't know won't hurt you. Sleep is death without the responsibility.

12. Life is something to do when you can't get to sleep.

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

14. Women who insist on having the same options as men would do well to consider the option of being the strong, silent type.

15. Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publication.

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

17. Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born to people you could not have possibly met.

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

19. The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.

20. Do not elicit your child's political opinions. He doesn't know any more than you do.

21. Children do not really need money. After all, they don't have to pay rent or send mailgrams.

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

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

24. No animal should ever jump up on the dining room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation.

25. Remember that as a teenager you are in the last stage of your life when you will be happy to hear the phone is for you.

26. Stand firm in your refusal to remain conscious during algebra. In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra.

27. I understand, of course, that many people find smoking objectionable. That is their right. I would, I assure you, be the very last to criticize the annoyed. I myself find many-- even most-- things objectionable. Being offended is the natural consequence of leaving one's home. I do not like aftershave lotion, adults who roller-skate, children who speak French, or anyone who is unduly tan. I do not, however, go around enacting legislation and putting up signs. In private I avoid such people; in public they have the run of the place. I stay at home as much as possible, and so should they. When it is necessary, however, to go out of the house, they must be prepared, as I am, to deal with the unpleasant personal habits of others. That is what 'public' means.

28. A place more hospitable to tourists than to its citizens is a Third World country.

29. My favorite animal is steak.

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

31. Index magazine interview

32. Ruminator 2005 interview

33. Interview magazine

34. Why not have your first baby at sixty, when your husband is already dead and your career is over? Then you can really devote yourself to it.

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

36. I think humor is warmer, and wit is colder. Wit is judgment, whereas humor invites some sort of response.

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

38. I figure you have the same chance of winning the lottery whether you play or not.

39. [Friendships] are easy to get out of compared to love affairs, but they are not easy to get out of compared to, say, jail.

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

41. If you want to get ahead in this world get a lawyer -- not a book.

42. When it comes to sports I am not particularly interested. Generally speaking, I look upon them as dangerous and tiring activities performed by people with whom I share nothing except the right to trial by jury.

43. 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.

44. Children ask better questions than adults. "May I have a cookie?" "Why is the sky blue?" and "What does a cow say?" are far more likely to elicit a cheerful response than "Where's your manuscript?" "Why haven't you called?" and "Who's your lawyer?"

45. 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.

46. 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.

47. 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.

48. Will power is not telling anybody you quit smoking.

49. 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.

50. 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.

51. Writers get exactly the right amount of fame: just enough to get a good table in a restaurant but not enough so that people are constantly interrupting you while you're eating dinner.

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

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

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

55. 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.

56. 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.

57. I am not personally a parent. But I do have two godchildren and am expecting a third. I am naturally concerned for their future. If I ruled the world you could bet your boots that none of them would ever set their eyes on any such contraptions as digital clocks and pocket calculators. But alas, I do not rule the world and that, I am afraid, is the story of my life - always a godmother, never a God.

58. A dog who thinks he is a man's best friend is a dog who obviously has never met a tax lawyer.

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