Fran Lebowitz Quotes

167 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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

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

Fran Lebowitz
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.

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

Fran Lebowitz
Humility is no substitute for a good personality...

Fran Lebowitz
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.

Fran Lebowitz
When I was a kid, the people of my generation didn't want to be writers, they wanted to be rock stars. Rock and roll was not just entertainment, it was the center of people's lives. When I was young, it was exciting and interesting.

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

Fran Lebowitz
Contrary to what many of you might 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.

Fran Lebowitz
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.

Fran Lebowitz
There is no such thing as inner peace. There is only nervousness or death.

Fran Lebowitz
I like every single part of Italy, unlike Italians, who only like their part and hate all the rest. They say things like, 'You're going to... Rome?'

Fran Lebowitz
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.

Fran Lebowitz
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.

Fran Lebowitz
Wealth and power are much more likely to be the result of breeding than they are of reading.
On self-help books

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

Fran Lebowitz
Your life story would not make a good book. Do not even try.

Fran Lebowitz
You can be nasty when you are young, but you really have to be older to achieve bitterness.

Fran Lebowitz
If you read a lot, nothing is as great as you've imagined. Venice is — Venice is better.

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

Fran Lebowitz
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.

Fran Lebowitz
Generally speaking, the poorer person summers where he winters.

Fran Lebowitz
The word that best describes my feeling of having written is triumphant — triumphant on the level of Alexander the Great. Having overcome your worst fear, the thing you are most vulnerable to, that is the definition of heroic.

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

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

Fran Lebowitz
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.

Fran Lebowitz
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.

Fran Lebowitz
No one earns 100 million. You steal 100 million.

Fran Lebowitz