Fran Lebowitz Quotes

167 Sourced Quotes

Special-interest publications should realize that if they are attracting enough advertising and readers to make a profit, the interest is not so special.

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

Fran Lebowitz
Cheese that is required by law to append the word food to its title does not go well with red wine or fruit.

Fran Lebowitz
In New York it's not whether you win or lose — it's how you lay the blame.

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

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

Fran Lebowitz
Spilling your guts is just exactly as charming as it sounds.

Fran Lebowitz
Think before you speak. Read before you think. This will give you something to think about that you didn't make up yourself - a wise move at any age, but most especially at seventeen, when you are in the greatest danger of coming to annoying conclusions.

Fran Lebowitz
White grapes are very attractive but when it comes to dessert people generally like cake with icing.

Fran Lebowitz
In Rome people spend most of their time having lunch. And they do it very well — Rome is unquestionably the lunch capital of the world.

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

Fran Lebowitz
My dream writing room would be the Imperial Library in Vienna.

Fran Lebowitz
I just hate to work, period. I am profoundly slothful. Practically inert. I have no energy. I never have. I just have no desire to be productive.

Fran Lebowitz
Writers have problems writing sex scenes, because writing one really well is pornography.

Fran Lebowitz
When you reach a certain age, suddenly there are lots of people younger than you, which is really startling.

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
Twenty-four hour room service generally refers to the length of time that it takes for the club sandwich to arrive.

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
Generally speaking, the poorer person summers where he winters.

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

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

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

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

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
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