Fran Lebowitz Quotes

167 Sourced Quotes

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

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

Fran Lebowitz
I do not think everyone is created equal. In fact, I know they're not. [The Constitution] means that everyone should have the same laws as everyone else. It doesn't mean that everyone's as smart or as cute or as lucky as everyone else.

Fran Lebowitz
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.

Fran Lebowitz
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.

Fran Lebowitz
Bread that must be sliced with an ax is bread that is too nourishing.

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

Fran Lebowitz
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.

Fran Lebowitz
Cold soup is a very tricky thing and it is the rare hostess who can carry it off. More often than not the dinner guest is left with the impression that had he only come a little earlier he could have gotten it while it was still hot.

Fran Lebowitz
It would also have been helpful to have gone to a Catholic grammar school. The only people who know grammar are those people who went to Catholic grammar school. Those nuns beat it into them.

Fran Lebowitz
While it is undeniably true that people love a surprise, it is equally true that they are seldom pleased to suddenly and without warning happen upon a series of prunes in what they took to be a normal loin of pork.

Fran Lebowitz
All the time I'm not writing I feel like a criminal. It's horrible to feel felonious every second of the day. It's much more relaxing actually to write.

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

Fran Lebowitz
Japanese food is very pretty and undoubtedly a suitable cuisine in Japan, which is largely populated by people of below average size. Hostesses hell-bent on serving such food to occidentals would be well advised to supplement it with something more substantial and to keep in mind that almost everybody likes French fries.

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

Fran Lebowitz
A great many people in Los Angeles are on strict diets that restrict their intake of synthetic foods. The reason for this seems to be the widely held belief that organically grown fruits and vegetables make the cocaine work faster.

Fran Lebowitz
I've never had the experience of being edited and never will.

Fran Lebowitz
Dogs who earn their living by appearing in television commercials in which they constantly and aggressively demand meat should remember that in at least one Far Eastern country they are meat.

Fran Lebowitz
It is imperative when flying coach that you restrain any tendency toward the vividly imaginative. For although it may momentarily appear to be the case, it is not at all likely that the cabin is entirely inhabited by crying babies smoking inexpensive domestic cigars.

Fran Lebowitz
[Friendships] are easy to get out of compared to love affairs, but they are not easy to get out of compared to, say, jail.

Fran Lebowitz
No matter how politely or distinctly you ask a Parisian a question he will persist in answering you in French.

Fran Lebowitz
I doubt there's ever been a true thing said on Fox. Maybe the weather report, maybe not.

Fran Lebowitz
Being poor is like being a child. Being rich is like being an adult: you get to do whatever you want. Everyone is nice when they have to be; rich people are nice when they feel like it.

Fran Lebowitz
If people don't want to listen to you, what makes you think they want to hear from your sweater?
Of slogans on clothing

Fran Lebowitz
12.35 p.m.—The phone rings. I am not amused. This is not my favourite way to wake up. My favourite way to wake up is to have a certain French movie star whisper softly to me 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.

Fran Lebowitz
The Word Lady: Most Often Used to Describe Someone You Wouldn't Want to Talk to for Even Five Minutes.

Fran Lebowitz