Fran Lebowitz - People Quotes

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

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

Fran Lebowitz
Inhabitants of underdeveloped nations and victims of natural disasters are the only people who have ever been happy to see soy beans.

Fran Lebowitz
Should novels generally be 600 pages? No, they should not. Half of writing, maybe 3/4 of writing, is editing. This seems to be a thing that has not gotten through to them. It's my impression that you could get rid of half of most of these books. These people are not good enough to be this long, but they're apparently also not good enough to be shorter.

Fran Lebowitz
Presently it appears that people are mainly concerned with being well rested. Those capable of uninterrupted sleep are much admired. Unconsciousness is in great demand. This is the day of the milligram.

Fran Lebowitz
The first step in having any successful war is getting people to fight it.

Fran Lebowitz
For someone such as myself, who is kind of feckless and immature, it's better to have rich friends than to be rich yourself, because then you have wealth without the responsibility. You get to go to their houses, and you get acquainted with a level of furniture that you cannot provide for yourself. Furniture, I think is the most important attribute of rich people.

Fran Lebowitz
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.

Fran Lebowitz
Communism requires of its adherents that they arise early and participate in a strenuous round of calisthenics. To someone who wishes that cigarettes came already lit the thought of such exertion at an hour when decent people are just nodding off is thoroughly abhorrent.

Fran Lebowitz
Communists all seem to wear small caps, a look I consider better suited to tubes of toothpaste than to people.

Fran Lebowitz
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.

Fran Lebowitz
Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass.

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

Fran Lebowitz
It is not true that there is dignity in all work. Some jobs are definitely better than others.... People who have good jobs are happy, rich, and well dressed. People who have bad jobs are unhappy, poor and use meat extenders. Those who seek dignity in the type of work that compels them to help hamburgers are certain to be disappointed.

Fran Lebowitz
Scientists are rarely to be counted among the fun people. Awkward at parties, shy with strangers, deficient in irony — they have had no choice but to turn their attention to the close study of everyday objects.

Fran Lebowitz
Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born to people you could not have possibly met.

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
I always liked people who were older. Of course, every year it gets harder to find them.

Fran Lebowitz