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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

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Should Novels Generally Be

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.

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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.

The Terrible State Of Public Education Has Paid Huge Dividends In Ignorance. Huge. We Now Have A Country That Can Be Told Blatant Lies - Easily Checkable, Blatant Lies - And I'm Not Talking About The Covert Workings Of The Cia. When We Have A Terrorist Attack, On September 11, 2001 With 19 Men - 15 Of Them Are Saudis - And Five Minutes Later The Whole Country Thinks They're From Iraq - How Can You Have Faith In The Public? This Is An Easily Checkable Fact. The Whole Country Is Like The O.j. Simpson Jurors.

Abandon The Search For Truth; Settle For A Good Fantasy

What Starts Love Is Your Ability To Stupefy And Blind Yourself To The Point Of Being Able To Fall In Love. What Stops It Is Waking Up.

Never Relinquish Clothing To A Hotel Valet Without First Specifically Telling Him That You Want It Back.

I Drank My Lifetime Supply Of Alcohol And I Took My Lifetime Supply Of Drugs Between The Ages Of 15 And 19.

Large, Naked, Raw Carrots Are Acceptable As Food Only To Those Who Live In Hutches Eagerly Awaiting Easter.

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Maybe It's Superficial To Exude A Sense Of Confidence In One's Clothes. But It's Also Integral. We Have An Appearance. Not All Of Us Are Beautiful. But We Can Appear Fine Looking. So We Should. Feeling Good About An Outfit Is The Point At Which That Outfit Finally Becomes Good.

Your Grandparents Did Not Endure The Indignities Of A Steerage Journey To Ellis Island So That You Could Stand Outside A Discothèque And Beg A Wallpaper Designer To Take You In With Him.

Take Away A Man's Actual Sense Of Manhood - Which Is Conventionally Based On The Ability To Work, To Earn Money, To Be Self-sufficient, To Provide For Children - And You've Got To Give Them Something Else. And They Did.

I Never Would Start Writing Before Midnight And I Would Finish At, Like, Seven In The Morning.

Radio News Is Bearable. This Is Due To The Fact That While The News Is Being Broadcast, The Disk Jockey Is Not Allowed To Talk.

Once You Go Outside Your Natural Audience, There Are Tons Of People That Don't Like You.

Cheese That Is Required By Law To Append The Word Food To Its Title Does Not Go Well With Red Wine Or Fruit.

Writing Pornography Is Deadly, Nothing Duller. I Mean A Toll-taker Has A More Exciting Life Than A Pornographer.

Designer Clothes Worn By Children Are Like Snowsuits Worn By Adults. Few Can Carry It Off Successfully.

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I Just Write When Fear Overtakes Me.

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I Never Wanted To Have Any Extra Money, If It Meant Having To Have Any Extra Work.

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[on The Writers She Admires:] I Prefer Dead Writers, Because I Don't See Them At Parties.

I Have A Hard Time Writing. Most Writers Have A Hard Time Writing. I Have A Harder Time Than Most Because I'm Lazier Than Most. I Don't Want To Brag, But I'm The Laziest Person I Have Ever Known.

It's Very Important Who The President Of The United States Is. America Is A Great Idea, So That's Why It's A Great Country.

In Real Life, I Assure You, There Is No Such Thing As Algebra.

Generally Speaking, It Is Inhumane To Detain A Fleeting Insight.

I Have Friends, Some Of Whom Are Spectacularly Good Writers, Who Really Want Someone To Edit Them. I Don't Register That Impulse. It's Like The Impulse For Wanting A Dog.

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Andy Warhol Made Fame More Famous.

Don't Bother Discussing Sex With Small Children. They Rarely Have Anything To Add.

Writers Get Exactly The Right Amount Of Fame: Just Enough To Get A Good Table In A Restaurant But Not Enough So That People Are Constantly Interrupting You While You're Eating Dinner.

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Food Is Definitely Important Part Of Your Balanced Diet.

Ask Your Child What He Wants For Dinner Only If He's Buying.

Success Didn't Spoil Me, I've Always Been Insufferable.

Life Is Something To Do When You Can't Get To Sleep.

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Frenchman: Germans With Good Food.

Donald Trump Is Not My Fault. You Can Blame Certain Things On Me, But Not Donald Trump.

Being Offended Is A Natural Consequence Of Leaving The House.

When I Started Publishing, I Got Offers To Write For Big Magazines. But I Would Always Say, "well, It's Not That I Don't Want To Write For These Big Magazines, But You Can't Edit It."

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I Wish That Real Estate Were Cheaper And Clothes Were More Expensive.

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Ever Since I Was A Little Child, I Refused To See Movies Of Books That I Loved. Because You Already Know What Heidi Looks Like And She Doesn't Look Like Shirley Temple.

I Love Being In Love. I Don't Think Anything Compares With It, Though I Consider It Very Disruptive.

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 To Actually Write.

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Knowingness Is Sexy. The Opposite Of Sexy Is Naivete.

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Now The Culture Is Made Of Old Things, It's A Collage. Art Made Out Of Art Is Not Art. You're Supposed To Make Art Out Of Life.

Original Thought Is Like Original Sin: Both Happened Before You Were Born To People You Could Not Have Possibly Met.

Original Thought

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No Animal Should Ever Jump Up On The Dining-room Furniture Unless Absolutely Certain That He Can Hold His Own In The Conversation.

Think Before You Speak. Read Before You Think.

The Main Symptom Of Falling In Love Is That You Lose Your Intellectual Prowess.

Falling In Love

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.

If You Read A Lot, Nothing Is As Great As You've Imagined. Venice Is - Venice Is Better.

The Thing You Love Right Away, Don't Do It, Because That's The Very Thing That's Going To Be Your Addiction For The Rest Of Your Life.

Rest Of Your Life

Things You Love

Technological Innovation Has Done Great Damage ... To Eating Habits. Food Is Now Available In Such Unpleasant Forms That One Frequently Finds Smoking Between Courses To Be An Aid To Digestion.

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Twenty-four-hour Room Service Generally Refers To The Length Of Time That It Takes For The Club Sandwich To Arrive. This Is Indeeddisheartening, Particularly When You've Ordered Scrambled Eggs.

Nothing Lasts. So It's My Belief, Yes, I Know A Lot Of The Things That We Liked Didn't Last, But Maybe Things We Don't Like, They're Also Not Going To Last. There Has Been Progress In My Lifetime. There Are Certainly Things That Are Better Than When I Was Young, And There Are Things That Are Worse. New York City, It's Worse. There's No Question.

My Desire To Curtail Undue Freedom Of Speech Extends Only To Such Public Areas As Restaurants, Airports, Streets, Hotel Lobbies, Parks, And Department Stores. Verbal Exchanges Between Consenting Adults In Private Are As Of Little Interest To Me As They Probably Are To Them.

Freedom Of Speech

That Which We Call Civilization Is Merely The Accumulated Debris Of A Chilling Number Of Bad Nights.

What's The Point Of Being Young If You're Not Going To Make New Things, I Wonder?

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Randomness Scares People. Religion Is A Way To Explain Randomness.

A Community Is A Butcher And A Doctor, A Minister, A Town Troublemaker. A "community" Is Not A Bunch Of People United By Some Grievance. That's Just Self-righteousness - Incredibly Dangerous And Antidemocratic.

A Dog Who Thinks He Is A Man's Best Friend Is A Dog Who Obviously Has Never Met A Tax Lawyer.

I Have A Real Aversion To Machines. I Write With A Pen. Then I Read It To Someone Who Writes It Onto The Computer. What Are Those Computer Letters Made Of Anyway? Light? Too Insubstantial. Paper, You Can Feel It. A Pen. There's A Connection. A Pen Goes Exactly At Your Speed, Whereas That Machine Jumps. And Then, That Machine Is Waiting For You, Just Humming "uh-huh, Yes?

While Clothes With Pictures And/or Writing On Them Are Not Entirely An Invention Of The Modern Age, They Are An Unpleasant Indication Of The General State Of Things. ... I Mean, Be Realistic. If People Don't Want To Listen To You, What Makes You Think They Want To Hear From Your Sweater?

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If People Don't Want To Listen To You, What Makes You Think They Want To Hear From Your Sweater?

I Drove A Cab. But All The Girls I Knew When I Was Young Who Had To Work - There Were Rich Girls - But The Ones Who Had To Work Were Waitresses. Because You Could Always Get Shifts In A Restaurant.

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London: A Place You Go To Get Bronchitis.

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New Yorkers, We've Seen Donald Trump For, Like, 30 Years; We Know Who He Is. So He Wasn't A Surprise To Me.

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If You Can Stay In Love For More Than Two Years, You're On Something.

There's Too Much Democracy In The Culture, Not Enough In The Society.

I've Done The Calculation And Your Chances Of Winning The Lottery Are Identical Whether You Play Or Not.

Instead Of Writing It Wrong Six Times And Then Writing It Right, I Think It Wrong Six Times And Then Write It Right The Seventh Time.

There Are Two Kinds Of Music - Good Music And Bad Music. Good Music Is Music That I Want To Hear. Bad Music Is Music That I Don't Want To Hear.

A Hobby Is, Of Course, An Abomination, As Are All Consuming Interests And Passions That Do Not Lead Directly To Large, Personal Gain.

I've Never Seen The Kardashians; I'm Not Sure Who They Are. But I Know A Lot About Them Because It's Impossible Not To.

In Fact, We Live In A Culture Where Intelligence, Exceptional Or Not, Is Reviled.

Lifestyle. Not A Word At All, Really - Rather A Wordette. A Genuine Case Of More Is Less. ... The Word Life And The Word Style Are, Except In Rare Cases (and Chances Are That You're Not Of Them), Mutually Exclusive.

I, Unfortunately, Take The Subway A Lot. It's Not My Preference, But It Is My Lot In Life.

You Sit Or Stand In The Subway, And You Look Around - I Do, Because I Don't Have A Phone So I'm Not Playing A Game - And You See People.

When I Saw A Phone On A Plane For The First Time, I Panicked ... I Thought People Were Going To Call Me.

The Word Lady: Most Often Used To Describe Someone You Wouldn't Want To Talk To For Even Five Minutes.

The Downfall Of Most Diets Is That They Restrict Your Intake Of Food.

There Are Two Modes Of Transport In Los Angeles: Car And Ambulance. Visitors Who Wish To Remain Inconspicuous Are Advised To Choose The Latter

Because Of The Internet Everybody Sees The Same Stuff. You Can Buy The Clothes Of New York, Even If You're Not Living There. So I Think That The Accessibility, In This Case, Drives Buying Choices More Than Anything Else.

A Salad Is Not A Meal, It Is A Style.

Television Turned Out To Be Exactly As Bad As The Most Irritating And Pedantic Intellectuals Of The '50s Said It Was Going To Be.

People Always Say "pop Culture." As If We Have Some High Culture To Distinguish It From.

I Write A Sentence A Thousand Times, Changing It All The Time To Look At It In Different Ways.

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Ezekiel Emanuel

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