"I just can't smile at people for money."
Read quote
6 likes
Quote collection
Fran Lebowitz quotes (page 10 of 20)
389 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"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."
Read quote
6 likes
"Favorite animal: steak."
Read quote
6 likes
"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.'"
Read quote
6 likes
"The main symptom of falling in love is that you lose your intellectual prowess."
Read quote
6 likes
"Screenwriting is not an artform, it is a punishment from God."
Read quote
6 likes
"To me the biggest waste of time is commuting. First, there is no place that is less than a two-hour commute from New York. You can be half a mile outside of the city limits; you're two hours away by car. I don't care how close they tell you it is. "Oh, it's only thirty miles." Thirty miles? At 8:30 in the morning, thirty miles outside New York, you might as well be starting out in Omaha."
Read quote
6 likes
"Citizen's Band radio renders one accessible to a wide variety of people from all walks of life. It should not be forgotten that all walks of life include conceptual artists, dry cleaners, and living poets."
Read quote
6 likes
"I have friends, some of whom are spectacularly good writers, who really want someone to edit them. I don't register that impulse. It's like the impulse for wanting a dog."
Read quote
6 likes
"Contrary to what many of you may imagine, a career in letters is not without its drawbacks - chief among them the unpleasant fact that one is frequently called upon to sit down and write."
Read quote
6 likes
"Perhaps one of the more noteworthy trends of our time is the occupation of buildings accompanied by the taking of hostages. The perpetrators of these deeds are generally motivated by political grievance, social injustice, and the deeply felt desire to see how they look on TV."
Read quote
6 likes
"I just write when fear overtakes me."
Read quote
6 likes
"Smoking is, as far as I am concerned, the entire point of being an adult. Many people find smoking objectionable. I myself find many - even more - things objectionable. 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."
Read quote
6 likes
"My other hobby, because I just love any job with a gavel, is auctioneer. And I so often have presided over charity auctions in New York that many years ago Sotheby's sent me my own gavel. Now, the Sotheby's gavel is infinitely more elegant--it came in a little velvet bag, with "Sotheby's" inscribed in gold. It hangs in my library. I feel that everyone has occasion to use a gavel at various times everyday, they just don't think of it."
Read quote
6 likes
"Writing pornography is deadly, nothing duller. I mean a toll-taker has a more exciting life than a pornographer."
Read quote
6 likes
"If you don't have children and you don't have a job, you have time for friendship ... People who have jobs are not the best friends to have. It's better to be friends with people who are unemployed."
Read quote
5 likes
"This idea that people have to love and understand each other is absurd. It's not human nature."
Read quote
5 likes
"It's much easier to write a solemn book than a funny book. It's harder to make people laugh than it is to make them cry. People are always on the verge of tears."
Read quote
5 likes
"I don't believe in anything you have to believe in."
Read quote
5 likes
"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."
Read quote
5 likes