Fran Lebowitz Quotes

I hate money. It is boring and it is arithmetic. The two things I hate the most.

I never would start writing before midnight and I would finish at, like, seven in the morning.

For the movie review columns, I always knew exactly what I was going to write about - the movies.

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

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.

Should you be a teenager blessed with uncommon good looks, document this state of affairs by the taking of photographs. It is the only way anyone will ever believe you in years to come.

New York's not exactly antiseptic. It could be clean and less dangerous, and not horrible, not under a tidal wave of tourists.

When I was very little, say five or six, I became aware of the fact that people wrote books. Before that, I thought that God wrote books. I thought a book was a manifestation of nature, like a tree.

Because I was young, I had this long hair, and people used to try to tip me with joints.

I stopped taking drugs when I was 19, and who wants to drive a cab around New York with drugs in their car?

I've always been old at heart.

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

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

You don't have to lay an egg to know if it tastes good.

All style is personal - that's what distinguishes it from fashion.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

People have been cooking and eating for thousands of years, so if you are the very first to have thought of adding lime juice to scalloped potatoes try to understand there must be a reason for this.

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

There is no such thing as inner peace. There is only nervousness and death.

There's no equivalent to Mozart in writing.

Reading is better than life. Without reading, you’re stuck with life.

Chocolate is an excellent flavor for ice cream but both unreasonable and disconcerting in chewing gum.

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

There is no such thing as inner peace there is only nervousness and death.

The opposite of talking is not listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.

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

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

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.