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Smoking Is, As Far As I Am Concerned, The Entire Point Of Being An Adult. Many People Find Smoking Objectionable. I Myself Find Many - Even More - Things Objectionable. I Do Not Like Aftershave Lotion, Adults Who Roller-skate, Children Who Speak French, Or Anyone Who Is Unduly Tan. I Do Not, However, Go Around Enacting Legislation And Putting Up Signs.

-Fran Lebowitz

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Smoking Is, As Far

Fran Lebowitz

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Smoking Is, As Far As I Am Concerned, The Entire Point Of Being An Adult. Many People Find Smoking Objectionable. I Myself Find Many - Even More - Things Objectionable. I Do Not Like Aftershave Lotion, Adults Who Roller-skate, Children Who Speak French, Or Anyone Who Is Unduly Tan. I Do Not, However, Go Around Enacting Legislation And Putting Up Signs.

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Raisins Are A Thing That Lasts, They Come In Small Boxes, And You Always Feel Like Eating Raisins, Even At Six In The Morning. A Raisin Is Always An Appropriate Snack.

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.

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.

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.

Great People Talk About Ideas, Average People Talk About Things, And Small People Talk About Wine.

Abandon The Search For Truth; Settle For A Good Fantasy

Humility Is No Substitute For A Good Personality.

Do Not Elicit Your Child's Political Opinions. He Doesn't Know Any More Than You Do.

Political Opinions

I Wouldn't Say That I Dislike The Young. I'm Simply Not A Fan Of Naïveté.

There Is No Such Thing As Inner Peace. There Is Only Nervousness Or Death. Any Attempt To Prove Otherwise Constitutes Unacceptable Behavior.

In New York We Have Zillions Of Different Kinds Of People, Many Of Them Hate Each Other, But Violence Based On That Hatred Is Really Uncommon Here.

The Telephone Is A Good Way To Talk To People Without Having To Offer Them A Drink.

People Care More About Trends Now Than They Do About Style. They Get So Wrapped Up In What's Happening That They Forget How To Dress, And They Never Learn Who They Are Because They Never Learn How To Take Care Of Anything.

I'm Very Lazy, I Hate To Work.

Writing Is So Hard. Why Would You Be A Writer If You Weren't Really Good At It? If You Could Be Anything Else, Why Would You Be A Writer?

I Am Alternately Very Gregarious - Very Sociable - And Then Very Solitary.

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.

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.

China Is Not A Great Idea: Capitalism And A Dictator. It's Like The Two Worst Possible Things You Could Imagine Together. It's A Very Bad Idea.

Children Do Not Really Need Money. After All, They Don't Have To Pay Rent Or Send Mailgrams.

Citizen's Band Radio Renders One Accessible To A Wide Variety Of People From All Walks Of Life. It Should Not Be Forgotten That All Walks Of Life Include Conceptual Artists, Dry Cleaners, And Living Poets.

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

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

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.

I'm Like The Laziest Person Who Ever Lived. It's Amazing To Me I Even Sit Up.

I Used To Love To Write. As A Child I Used To Write All The Time. I Loved To Write Up Until The Second I Got My First Professional Writing Job. It Turns Out It's Not That I Hate To Write. I Hate, Simply, To Work.

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

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.

American Women Think That Clothes Fit Them If They Can Fit Into Them. But That's Not At All What Fit Means.

When You Leave New York, You Are Astonished At How Clean The Rest Of The World Is. Clean Is Not Enough.

I'm Not A Communist. I'm An American. I'm A Capitalist. I Mean, I'm Not A Very Good Capitalist, Myself. I'm Not Very Good At It, But It's Not That I'm Not For Capitalism. But People Who Believe In Things Like Corporate Citizenship, It's Idiotic. I Mean, It Shows You're An Idiot.

Perhaps The Least Cheering Statement Ever Made On The Subject Of Art Is That Life Imitates It.

When You Reach A Certain Age, Suddenly There Are Lots Of People Younger Than You, Which Is Really Startling.

I Hate All Jobs. I've Never Had A Job I Liked.

In Conversation You Can Use Timing, A Look, An Inflection. But On The Page All You Have Is Commas, Dashes, The Amount Of Syllables In A Word. When I Write, I Read Everything Out Loud To Get The Right Rhythm.

Notoriously Insensitive To Subtle Shifts In Mood, Children Will Persist In Discussing The Color Of A Recently Sighted Cement-mixer Long After One's Own Interest In The Topic Has Waned.

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Frenchman: Germans With Good Food.

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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Life Is So Absurd Now That It Is Almost Impossible To Be A Satirist In This Era.

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Remember This: No Matter How Politely Or Distinctly You Ask A Parisian A Question He Will Persist In Answering You In French.

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

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I Don't Care If New York Avoided Bankruptcy By Substituting Tourism For The Garment Business.

Civilised Adults Do Not Take Apple Juice With Dinner.

How Do You Know If Your Child Is A Writer? Your Obstetrician Holds His Stethoscope To Your Abdomen And Only Hears Excuses.

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

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

You Can't Go Around Hoping That Most People Have Sterling Moral Characters. The Most You Can Hope For Is That People Will Pretend That They Do.

I've Never Had The Experience Of Being Edited And Never Will.

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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.

Smoking Is, As Far As I'm Concerned, The Entire Point Of Being An Adult.

Tolerance Is Really A Better Thing Than Understanding. Because It Doesn't Agitate Against Human Nature.

People Who Are Well-known, Famous People, I Think, Make Very Poor Characters For Fiction. They Make Good Characters For Gossip Columns. But Not For Fiction.

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For The Movie Review Columns, I Always Knew Exactly What I Was Going To Write About - The Movies.

The French Probably Invented The Very Notion Of Discretion. It's Not That They Feel That What You Don't Know Won't Hurt You; They Feel That What You Don't Know Won't Hurt Them. To The French Lying Is Simply Talking.

To Me, O'hara Is The Real Fitzgerald.

Communists All Seem To Wear Small Caps, A Look I Consider Better Suited To Tubes Of Toothpaste Than To People.

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

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

I Hate Money. It Is Boring And It Is Arithmetic. The Two Things I Hate The Most.

If You Want To Get Ahead In This World Get A Lawyer -- Not A Book.

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

Never Judge A Cover By Its Book.

Sleep Is Death Without The Responsibility.

Now People Need Special Costumes To Ride Bicycles. I Mean, A Helmet, What, Are You An Astronaut??

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

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If People Don't Hold Grudges, It Means They Just Don't Care What People Do.

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To Me The Outdoors Is What You Must Pass Through In Order To Get From Your Apartment Into A Taxicab.

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.

If There Had Been A Job Of Being A Reader, I Would Have Taken That, Because I Love To Read And I Don't Love To Write. That Would Be Blissful.

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

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No One's Supposed To Be The President. This Is Not England. And It's Not Just The Bush Family, All Families Designate Each Child As Having Some Particular Trait.

All God's Children Are Not Beautiful. Most Of God's Children Are, In Fact, Barely Presentable.

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The Effect Of Aids Was Like A War In A Minute Country. Like, In World War I, A Whole Generation Of Englishmen Died All At Once. And With Aids, A Whole Generation Of Gay Men Died Practically All At Once, Within A Couple Of Years.

Science Has Done Absolutely Nothing About Noise. The Worst Design Flaw In The Human Body Is That You Can't Close Your Ears. The Reason You Can't Close Your Ears Is, If A Lion Was Coming, You Had To Wake Up. Today No Lions Are Coming. Beeping Trucks Are Coming. I Read The Other Day That The Guy Who Invented The Beep When Trucks Go Backward, He Died. I Thought: Of Course - He Dies, I Have To Listen To It.

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Violet Will Be A Good Color For Hair At Just About The Same Time That Brunette Becomes A Good Color For Flowers.

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.

I Am Not... Totally Unreceptive To Colour Providing It Makes Its Appearance Quietly, Deferentially, And Without Undue Fanfare.

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.

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.

Democracy Is An Interesting, Even Laudable, Notion And There Is No Question But That When Compared To Communism, Which Is Too Dull, Or Fascism, Which Is Too Exciting, It Emerges As The Most Palatable Form Of Government.

Middle Class Was Defined By Having Certain Values And Only A Certain Amount Of Money. But This New Middle Class Seems To Have Absolutely No Values And An Unlimited Amount Of Money.

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

Andy Warhol Made Fame More Famous.

New York Was Always More Expensive Than The Other Places, Even When It Was Going Bankrupt. In Other Words, In 1971, New York Was Expensive For Someone With No Money. For Anyone.

It's Very Important When Making A Friend To Check And See If They Have A Private Plane. People Think A Good Personality Trait In A Friend Is Kindness Or A Sense Of Humor. No, In A Friend A Good Personality Trait Is A Gulfstream.

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.

When I Was Young, Boys Didn't Type.

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.

I Used To Buy All My Shirts At Brooks Brothers, But That Was Completely Ruined About 20 Years Ago. They Discontinued The Shirt I Liked. If I Had Only Known This - I Mean, If You're Going To Discontinue An Item That Thousands And Thousands Of People Buy, Announce It. Say, 'we Will No Longer Be Making Our Excellent Brooks Brothers Cotton Shirts That We Made For 5,000 Years. We're Going To Change Them In Some Awful Way. We're Alerting You So You Can Buy A Lifetime Supply.' Shirts Don't Go Bad, They're Not Peaches.

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.

What People Don't Know Is: Clothes Don't Really Fit You Unless They're Made For You. Especially When You Wear Men's Clothes, Like I Do. American Women Think That Clothes Fit Them If They Can Fit Into Them. But That's Not At All What Fit Means.

The Best Fame Is A Writer's Fame. It's Enough To Get A Table At A Good Restaurant, But Not Enough To Get You Interrupted When You Eat.

We Are All Born With A Rut Radar. Mine Is Finely Wired, A Little Oversensitive Maybe. Perhaps Just A Bit Hyperactive. Twenty Steady Boyfriends Before Turning 16, A New Best Friend 12 Times A Year, Switched College Majors Every Time I Met Someone Who Seemed Exactly Like The Sort Of Person I Really, Really Wanted To Be. I'm Not Fickle. I'm Just Never There Yet.

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

I Place A High Moral Value On The Way People Behave. I Find It Repellent To Have A Lot, And To Behave With Anything Other Than Courtesy In The Old Sense Of The Word - Politeness Of The Heart, A Gentleness Of The Spirit.

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?

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.

Inhabitants Of Underdeveloped Nations And Victims Of Natural Disasters Are The Only People Who Have Ever Been Happy To See Soybeans.

Smoking Is, If Not My Life, Then At Least My Hobby. I Love To Smoke. Smoking Is Fun. Smoking Is Cool. Smoking Is, As Far As I Am Concerned, The Entire Point Of Being An Adult.

Magazines All Too Frequently Lead To Books And Should Be Regarded By The Prudent As The Heavy Petting Of Literature.

Special-interest Publications Should Realize That If They Are Attracting Enough Advertising And Readers To Make A Profit, The Interest Is Not So Special.

Forcing People Into A Situation Where They're Supposed To Adore Each Other Is Probably Bad. But Letting People Get On And Off The 6 Train Without Stabbing Each Other, That's Good.

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

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To Me, The Main Difference Between Young People Now And The People I Was Young With Isn't So Much Style, It's The Relationships They Have With Their Parents. Their Parents Like Them Much More Than Ours Liked Us. Our Parents Weren't Our Friends. But Now I See My Friends On The Phones With Their, What, 30 - Year - Old Kids? And They're Talking About Feelings.

The Good Thing About Being In Someone Else's Apartment Is It's So Much Easier To Leave Than It Is To Get Someone Out.

I Believe In Talking Behind Peoples' Backs. That Way, They Hear It More Than Once.

The First People Who Died Of Aids Were Artists. They Were The Most Interesting People.

Those Who Use The Word 'lifestyle' Are Rarely In Possession Of Either.

You Can Be Nasty When You Are Young, But You Really Have To Be Older To Achieve Bitterness.

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.

They Know You Can't Get People To Stop Smoking, So They Develop A System Of Informants. That's The Whole Idea Of Second-hand Smoke, You Know. Make Second-hand Smoke Dangerous And Turn Everybody Against Smokers. Then They Say You Can't Even Smoke In A Bar - A Bar! - Because Bartenders Have A Right To A Smoke-free "workspace." Ah, Bartenders, Those Health Nuts.

Your Responsibility As A Parent Is Not As Great As You Might Imagine. You Need Not Supply The World With The Next Conqueror Of Disease Or Major Motion Picture Star. If Your Child Simply Grows Up To Be Someone Who Does Not Use The Word "collectible" As A Noun, You Can Consider Yourself An Unqualified Success.

A Woman's Quest In Life Should Be To Find The Perfect Apartment. And I Have Found The Perfect Apartment. The Perfect Apartment Is The First Floor Of The Metropolitan Museum. With A Sofa.

New York Was Always More Expensive Than Any Other Place In The United States, But You Could Live In New York - And By New York, I Mean Manhattan. Brooklyn Was The Borough Of Grandparents. We Didn't Live Well. We Lived In These Horrible Places. But You Could Live In New York. And You Didn't Have To Think About Money Every Second.

By The Time Everyone Catches Up With You, You're Bored.

If You Are A Dog And Your Owner Suggests That You Wear A Sweater Suggest That He Wear A Tail.

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.

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

I Never Had A Typewriter. I Never Had Any Machines.

Commercials And Sometimes Other Guests - It's The Down Side Of Tv. Other People - It's The Downside Of Life In General.

When It Comes To Sports I Am Not Particularly Interested. Generally Speaking, I Look Upon Them As Dangerous And Tiring Activities Performed By People With Whom I Share Nothing Except The Right To Trial By Jury.

As A Teenager You Are At The Last Stage In Your Life When You Will Be Happy To Hear That The Phone Is For You.

Nature Is By And Large To Be Found Out Of Doors, A Location Where, It Cannot Be Argued, There Are Never Enough Comfortable Chairs.

Smoking Is, As Far As I Am Concerned, The Entire Point Of Being An Adult. Many People Find Smoking Objectionable. I Myself Find Many - Even More - Things Objectionable. I Do Not Like Aftershave Lotion, Adults Who Roller-skate, Children Who Speak French, Or Anyone Who Is Unduly Tan. I Do Not, However, Go Around Enacting Legislation And Putting Up Signs.

The Conversational Overachiever Is Someone Whose Grasp Exceeds His Reach. This Is Possible But Not Attractive.

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