Fran Lebowitz Quotations

You're only as good as your last haircut.

In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra.

I've done the calculation and your chances of winning the lottery are identical whether you play or not.

There is no such thing as inner peace. There is only nervousness or death. Any attempt to prove otherwise constitutes unacceptable behavior.

Humility is no substitute for a good personality.

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

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.

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.

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.

I place a high moral value on the way people behave. I find it repellent to have a lot, and to behave with anything other than courtesy in the old sense of the word - politeness of the heart, a gentleness of the spirit.

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

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

Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine.

If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater suggest that he wear a tail.

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

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 never took hallucinogenic drugs because I never wanted my consciousness expanded one unnecessary iota.

As a teenager you are at the last stage in your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you.

Success didn't spoil me, I've always been insufferable.

To put it rather bluntly, I am not the type who wants to go back to the land; I am the type who wants to go back to the hotel.

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

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

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

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

Food is an important part of a balanced diet.

Do not, on a rainy day, ask your child what he feels like doing, because I assure you that what he feels like doing, you won't feel like watching.

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

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

Your life story would not make a good book. Don't even try.

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.

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

Even when freshly washed and relieved of all obvious confections, children tend to be sticky.

Nature is by and large to be found out of doors, a location where, it cannot be argued, there are never enough comfortable chairs.

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

If you're going to America, bring your own food.

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.

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

All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in fact, barely presentable.

My desire to curtail undue freedom of speech extends only to such public areas as restaurants, airports, streets, hotel lobbies, parks, and department stores. Verbal exchanges between consenting adults in private are as of little interest to me as they probably are to them.

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

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

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.

Calling a taxi in Texas is like calling a rabbi in Iraq.

If you are truly serious abut preparing your child for the future, don't teach him to subtract teach him to deduct.

Designer clothes worn by children are like snowsuits worn by adults. Few can carry it off successfully.

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.

Never relinquish clothing to a hotel valet without first specifically telling him that you want it back.

Don't bother discussing sex with small children. They rarely have anything to add.

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

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

If you are of the opinion that the contemplation of suicide is sufficient evidence of a poetic nature, do not forget that actions speak louder than words.

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

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

I often used to say, the more parties there were for a book, the worse the book was.

Notoriously insensitive to subtle shifts in moods, children will persist in discussing the color of a recently sighted cement mixer long after one's interest in the topic has waned

Do not allow children to mix drinks. It is unseemly and they use too much vermouth.

The first people who died of AIDS were artists. They were the most interesting people.

Think before you speak. Read before you think.

My favorite animal is steak.

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.

People (a group that in my opinion has always attracted an undue amount of attention) have often been likened to snowflakes. This analogy is meant to suggest that each is unique - no two alike. This is quite patently not the case. People, even at the current rate of inflation - in fact, people especially at the current rate of inflation - are quite simply a dime a dozen. And, I hasten to add, their only similarity to snowflakes resides in their invariably and lamentable tendency to turn, after a few warm days, to slush.

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.

What do they do in these [private] clubs, anyway? Sit around saying things like 'Thank God I'm here. No Jews! What fun! This is living, huh? Look! No Jews! I don't know when I've had a better time. And no women! Just men! And no blacks! Just whites! White men! White men who are not Jewish! It doesn't get any better than this.' To some people, apparently, this is a perfect description of injustice. To me, this is a perfect description of a gay bar in Iceland.

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.

Donald Trump is not my fault. You can blame certain things on me, but not Donald Trump.

Being offended is a natural consequence of leaving the house.

When I was young, I liked romance. But to me, romance is the opposite of domestic life. I just don't want anyone in the apartment, not for longer than a few hours.

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

I wouldn't say that I dislike the young. I'm simply not a fan of naïveté.

I could not possibly be in a relationship now for more than six days. When I was younger, I might have said six months, although I think the longest relationship I was ever in was three years.

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

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.

Telling someone he looks healthy isn't a compliment -- it's a second opinion.

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.

Generally speaking, the poorer person summers where he winters.

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.

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

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.

I'd like to decide who comes here. I'd like to be the admissions director of New York.

I've always been old at heart.

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

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?"

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.

If people don't hold grudges, it means they just don't care what people do.

What's the point of being young if you're not going to make new things, I wonder?

Violet will be a good color for hair at just about the same time that brunette becomes a good color for flowers.

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

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.

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

If in addition to being physically unattractive you find that you do not get along well with others, do not under any circumstances attempt to alleviate this situation by developing an interesting personality. An interesting personality, is, in an adult, insufferable. In a teenager it is frequently punishable by law.

I, unfortunately, take the subway a lot. It's not my preference, but it is my lot in life.

I'm very lazy, I hate to work.

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.

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.

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.'

Sleep is death without the responsibility.

Large, naked, raw carrots are acceptable as food only to those who live in hutches eagerly awaiting Easter.

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

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.