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The Most Common Error Made In Matters Of Appearance Is The Belief That One Should Disdain The Superficial And Let The True Beauty Of One's Soul Shine Through. If There Are Places On Your Body Where This Is A Possibility, You Are Not Attractive - You Are Leaking.

-Fran Lebowitz

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The Most Common Error

Fran Lebowitz

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The Most Common Error Made In Matters Of Appearance Is The Belief That One Should Disdain The Superficial And Let The True Beauty Of One's Soul Shine Through. If There Are Places On Your Body Where This Is A Possibility, You Are Not Attractive - You Are Leaking.

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Educational Television Should Be Absolutely Forbidden. It Can Only Lead To Unreasonable Disappointment When Your Child Discovers That The Letters Of The Alphabet Do Not Leap Up Out Of Books And Dance Around With Royal-blue Chickens.

There Are Some Great Writers Who Are Great Talkers, But There Are More Great Writers Who Are Not Great Talkers. People Seem To Think There Is Some Connection Between Talking And Writing, But I Love To Talk And If There Were Some Connection Between The Two Of Them I Would Be The Most Prolific Writer In The History Of The World.

Marriage Entitles Women To The Protection Of A Strong Man Who Will Steady The Stepladder While They Paint The Kitchen Ceiling.

The Only Appropriate Response To The Question, 'can I Be Frank?' Is, 'yes, If I Can Be Barbara.

To Put It Rather Bluntly, 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.

The Second I Learned To Read In First Grade, When I Was 5, I Preferred It To Life. And I Still Do.

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.

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

Designer Clothes

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

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.

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

The Opposite Of Talking Isn't Listening. The Opposite Of Talking Is Waiting.

In New York, People Are Very Overbooked.you Say, When Do You Want To Have Dinner? It's May. They Say, What About October? And Then They Complain: Oh You Can't Believe How Booked Up I Am.

If Your Sexual Fantasies Were Truly Of Interest To Others, They Would No Longer Be Fantasies.

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

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.

I'm Not A Nervous Person. I'm Not Afraid To Be On Tv. I'm Only Afraid When I Write. When I'm At My Desk I Feel Like Most People Would Feel If They Went On Tv.

Without These Tourists, New York Would Be Fantastic. I Don't Want Them To Come. Stay Home!

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.

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

Bread That Must Be Sliced With An Axe Is Bread That Is Too Nourishing.

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.

...i Believed Passionately That Communists Were A Race Of Horned Men Who Divided Their Time Equally Between The Burning Of Nancy Drew Books And The Devising Of A Plan Of Nuclear Attack That Would Land The Largest And Most Lethal Bomb Squarely Upon The Third-grade Class Of Thomas Jefferson School In Morristown, New Jersey.

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.

I'm Sure That Being Sober All These Years Accounts For My Ill Humor.

Romantic Love Is Mental Illness. But It's A Pleasurable One. It's A Drug. It Distorts Reality, And That's The Point Of It. It Would Be Impossible To Fall In Love With Someone That You Really Saw.

I Think Writing For Me Has Always Been A Matter Of Fear. Writing Is Fear And Not Writing Is Fear. I Am Afraid Of Writing And Then I'm Afraid Of Not Writing.

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

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.

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

I Prefer Dead Writers Because You Don't Run Into Them At Parties.

If You Live In New York And You Have A Guest Room, You Have Guests. So I Think It's Best Not To Have A Guest Room.

Whenever I Am Doing Anything Else, Which Is Most Of The Time, Even If It Is Not Something Like Robbing A Bank, I Feel Felonious. Writing Is What I'm Supposed To Be Doing.

If You Are Of The Opinion That The Contemplation Of Suicide Is Sufficient Evidence Of A Poetic Nature, Do Not Forget That Actions Speak Louder Than Words.

People (a Group That In My Opinion Has Always Attracted An Undue Amount Of Attention) Have Often Been Likened To Snowflakes. This Analogy Is Meant To Suggest That Each Is Unique - No Two Alike. This Is Quite Patently Not The Case. People, Even At The Current Rate Of Inflation - In Fact, People Especially At The Current Rate Of Inflation - Are Quite Simply A Dime A Dozen. And, I Hasten To Add, Their Only Similarity To Snowflakes Resides In Their Invariably And Lamentable Tendency To Turn, After A Few Warm Days, To Slush.

Generally Speaking, The Poorer Person Summers Where He Winters.

If You Are Truly Serious Abut Preparing Your Child For The Future, Don't Teach Him To Subtract Teach Him To Deduct.

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

To Me The Biggest Waste Of Time Is Commuting. First, There Is No Place That Is Less Than A Two-hour Commute From New York. You Can Be Half A Mile Outside Of The City Limits; You're Two Hours Away By Car. I Don't Care How Close They Tell You It Is. "oh, It's Only Thirty Miles." Thirty Miles? At 8:30 In The Morning, Thirty Miles Outside New York, You Might As Well Be Starting Out In Omaha.

Spilling Your Guts Is Just Exactly As Charming As It Sounds.

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

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.

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

Children Are Much Less Annoying [than Adults] And They Never Start Trends.

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

A Person Who Actually Knows How To Wear Clothes...they Would Look Good In Any Clothes. You See This Especially At The Academy Awards. Even If The Dresses Are Beautiful And Expensive And Important, The Actresses Can't Always Carry Them. Sometimes I Feel Like Saying To Them, "act! You Know How To Act, You're An Actor. You're About To Win An Award For, I Don't Know, Convincingly Playing That Venezuelan Nun Who Went To War. Now Act Like You Can Wear This Dress.".

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.

If You Removed All Of The Homosexuals And Homosexual Influence From What Is Generally Regarded As American Culture, You Would Pretty Much Be Left With Let's Make A Deal.

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.

Money...buys Privacy, Silence. The Less Money You Have, The Noisier It Is; The Thinner Your Walls, The Closer Your Neighbors.... The First Thing You Notice When You Step Into The House Or Apartment Of A Rich Person Is How Quiet It Is.

To Lose Yourself In A Book Is The Desire Of The Bookworm. I Mean To Be Taken. That Is My Desire.

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.

There Are Certain Relationships I Think I'm Great At: I'm The World's Greatest Daughter. I'm A Great Relative. I Believe I'm A Great Friend.

When Toni Morrison Said 'write The Book You Want To Read,' She Didn't Mean Everybody.

I'm Such A Slow Writer I Have No Need For Anything As Fast As A Word Processor. I Don't Need Anything So Snappy. I Write So Slowly That I Could Write In My Own Blood Without Hurting Myself.

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

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Telling The Truth

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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.

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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.

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Writers Have Problems Writing Sex Scenes, Because Writing One Really Well Is Pornography.

My Favorite Animal Is Steak.

Everything In Japan Is Hidden. Real Life Has An Unlisted Phone Number.

I Hate, Simply, To Work. I Just Hate To Work, Period. I Am Profoundly Slothful. Practically Inert.

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

[on Not Reading Newspapers:] If Something Important Happens, Your Mother Calls You.

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

Do Not Approach With Anything Even Resembling Assurance A Restaurant That Moves.

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

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.

I Happen To Love A Good Run Almost As Much As Sex. Like Sex, There Are Often Times I Don't Think I'm Interested Until I'm Into It. Unlike Sex, I Do Have To Get Out Of Bed And Into The Elements. I Hate Leaving Bed.

Because I Was Young, I Had This Long Hair, And People Used To Try To Tip Me With Joints.

What I Can't Be Is Monogamous. That Tends To Upset People. I Just Don't Like Domestic Life.

Did It Ever Occur To Anyone That If You Put Nice Libraries In Public Schools You Wouldn't Have To Put Them In Prisons?

Your Responsibility As A Parent Is Never Great As The Case Is With The Mother.

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Food Is An Important Part Of A Balanced Diet.

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.

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.

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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.

Until I Was About 7, I Thought Books Were Just There, Like Trees. When I Learned That People Actually Wrote Them, I Wanted To, Too, Because All Children Aspire To Inhuman Feats Like Flying. Most People Grow Up To Realize They Can't Fly. Writers Are People Who Don't Grow Up To Realize They Can't Be God.

Having Been Unpopular In High School Is Not Just Cause For Book Publications.

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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."

If I Lived In Another Country, Like A Country That Was, Say, An Enemy Of The United States, I Would Be More Amused Than I Am.

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

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.

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

Knowingness Is Sexy. The Opposite Of Sexy Is Naivete.

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

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?

Breakfast Cereals That Come In The Same Colors As Polyester Leisure Suits Make Oversleeping A Virtue.

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

[children Are] Like Talking Animals. Their Consciousness Is So Different From Ours That They Constitute A Different Species. They Don't Have To Be Particularly Interesting Children; Just The Fact That They Are Children Is Sufficient. They Don't Know What Anything Is, So They Have To Make It Up. No Matter How Dull They Are, They Still Have To Figure Things Out For Themselves.

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.

In A Print Interview, As You May Or May Not Know, They [editors] Can Do Whatever They Want. And They Do. This Is Why Most People Are More Hesitant To Do Print, Because They Can Change It, And They Do Change It. They Even Change Things That Are In Quotation Marks, Which Is A Pet Peeve Of Mine. I've Said To Numerous Reporters, "would You Read Me Back My Direct Quotes?" And They Always Say No. They Always Say That's Against The Policy.

Food Is Definitely Important Part Of Your Balanced Diet.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

There Are Too Many Books. The Books Are Terrible. And This Is Because You Have Been Taught To Have Self-esteem.

Women Who Insist Upon Having The Same Options As Men Would Do Well To Consider The Option Of Being The Strong, Silent Type

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

Children Ask Better Questions Than Adults. "may I Have A Cookie?" "why Is The Sky Blue?" And "what Does A Cow Say?" Are Far More Likely To Elicit A Cheerful Response Than "where's Your Manuscript?" "why Haven't You Called?" And "who's Your Lawyer?"

I Could Not Possibly Be In A Relationship Now For More Than Six Days. When I Was Younger, I Might Have Said Six Months, Although I Think The Longest Relationship I Was Ever In Was Three Years.

I'm Very Lazy, I Hate To Work.

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.

I Don't Like The Kind Of Country Living Where You Have To Help. I Like Country Living Where There Is Help.

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

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

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

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.

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

Most Writers Write Too Much. I Have The Exact Opposite Problem. I Feel I Could Write Almost Anything In A Paragraph. I Have A Natural Ability To Condense, And So I Often Think, "are You Kidding Me? Five Thousand Words? How Am I Gonna Make 5,000 Words Out Of That?"

Whenever Someone Accuses Someone Of Being A Racist - Which Is Rare, You Have To Admit, Considering How Much Racism There Is - There Is An Incredible Outrage. I Realized That We Live In An Environment That It Seems To Be Worse To Call Someone A Racist Than To Be One.

You Know, Almost Everyone Is An Irritant To Me. I Think People Have Forgotten What The Word 'public' Means. 'public' Means You're Going To Be Irritated. It's A Natural Consequence Of Leaving One's Home. You Go Outside, And There Are People Who Are Irritating. I'll Be Standing On The Sidewalk, And Someone Berates Me For Smoking. I Look At The Person And Think, But What About Your Shoes? How Can You Wear Shoes Like That And Have The Confidence To Accost Someone Like Me?

When I'm Supposed To Be Writing I Clean My Apartment, Take My Clothes To The Laundry, Get Organized, Make Lists, Do The Dishes. I Would Never Do A Dish Unless I Had To Write.

The First Step In Having Any Successful War Is Getting People To Fight It.

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.

If Thine Enemy Offend Thee, Give His Child A Drum.

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

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.

Even If People Aren't Republicans, It Doesn't Seem Shocking To Them That Ronald Reagan Was The President. Well Of Course, Because Arnold Schwarzenegger Was The Governor! This Is Not Only A Bar Too Low, This Is No Bar At All. I Don't Care Who You Are, You Know 20 People Smarter Than Ronald Reagan. You Know 20 People Who Would Be A Better President Than Ronald Reagan.

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

I Had To Go On Tv With The President Of The Catholic League, Which Is Not An Official Organization At All, Just A Lot Of Catholics, Or Maybe It's Just This Guy. He Demanded To De-fund Art Completely And Argued That Taxpayers Should Not Pay For It. I Said People Who Represent The Catholic Church Shouldn't Talk About Taxes.

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

Life Was Certainly More Entertaining When People Were Indulging Their Vices As Opposed To Going To Meetings To Indulge In A New Vice: Discussing Their Innermost Thoughts In Public.

You're Only As Good As Your Last Haircut.

Romantic Love Is Mental Illness. But It's A Pleasurable One. It's A Drug. It Distorts Reality, And That's The Point Of It. It Would Be Impossible To Fall In Love With Someone That You Really Saw. The Second You Meet Someone That You're Going To Fall In Love With You Deliberately Become A Moron. You Do This In Order To Fall In Love, Because It Would Be Impossible To Fall In Love With Any Human Being If You Actually Saw Them For What They Are.

Falling In Love

I'm A Horrible Girlfriend. I Always Was. I'm Great At The Beginning, Because I Can Be Very Romantic.

When People Say, 'doesn't Gloria [vanderbilt] Look Great? She's 85.' I Say, 'yes, She Was A Raving Beauty When She Was 20,' That's The Key. Very Helpful.

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.

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.

The Most Common Error Made In Matters Of Appearance Is The Belief That One Should Disdain The Superficial And Let The True Beauty Of One's Soul Shine Through. If There Are Places On Your Body Where This Is A Possibility, You Are Not Attractive - You Are Leaking.

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.

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.

Contrary To What Many Of You May 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.

Rome Is A Very Loony City In Every Respect. One Needs But Spend An Hour Or Two There To Realize That Fellini Makes Documentaries.

No One I Knew Talked About Money. It's Not An Area Of Interest.

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.

It Is, In Fact, Safe To Assume That, More Often Than Not, Life Imitates Craft, For Who Among Us Can Say That Our Experience Does Not More Closely Resemble A Macramé Plant Holder Than It Does A Painting By Seurat. When It Comes To Art, Life Is The Biggest Copycat In The Matter Of The Frame.

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

I Hate Writing. I Will Do Anything To Avoid It. The Only Way I Could Write Less Was If I Was Dead.

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

Being A Woman Is Of Special Interest Only To Aspiring Male Transsexuals. To Actual Women, It Is Simply A Good Excuse Not To Play Football.

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. It Makes Growing Up Genuinely Worthwhile. I Am Quite Well Aware Of The Hazards Of Smoking. Smoking Is Not A Healthful Pastime, It Is True. Smoking Is Indeed No Bracing Dip In The Ocean, No Strenuous Series Of Calisthenics, No Two Laps Around The Reservoir. On The Other Hand, Smoking Has To Its Advantage The Fact That Is A Quiet Pursuit. Smoking Is, In Effect A Dignified Sport.

Not Writing Is Probably The Most Exhausting Profession I've Ever Encountered.

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'd Like To Decide Who Comes Here. I'd Like To Be The Admissions Director Of New York.

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 Never Met Anyone Who Didn't Have A Very Smart Child. What Happens To These Children, You Wonder, When They Reach Adulthood?

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.

I Do Not Believe In God. I Believe In Cashmere.

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.

Tourism As A Number-one Industry Is A Terrible, Terrible Idea For Any City, Especially New York. If You Were Going To Turn A City, Which Is A Place Where People Live, Into A Tourist Attraction, You're Going To Have To Make It A Place That People Who Don't Live Here, Like. So I Object To Living In A Place For People Who Don't Live Here.

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

Civilised Adults Do Not Take Apple Juice With Dinner.

I Believe That At Birth Everyone Gets The Capacity For A Certain Amount Of Drugs And Alcohol, Everyone The Same, You Can Do It All Between 15 And 19 Like I Did, Or You Can Stretch It Out Over 70 Years.

When We Were Young, We Knew Things. We Knew Basic History, Even As It Related To Fashion. Now, When Something Reappears, An 18 Year Old Has No Clue That It's A Revival. Despite The Fact That They're Almost Always Online They Don't Get References. I Think That's Part Of Why Visual Things Are Becoming So Derivative.

People Are Constantly Telling Me, Whether They Are Friends Who Feel Sorry For Me, Because I Can't Find A Place To Live, Or Real Estate Agents, "you Can't Afford An Apartment The Size You Need With This Many Books. Why Don't You Just Put Some Of Your Books In Storage?" And I Always Say The Same Thing: "what If I Told You I Had Four Children? Would You Say, 'you Just Can't Afford To House Four Children. Why Don't You Just Put Two Of Them In Storage?'" That's How I Feel.

The Other Day I Read That Last Year 58 Million Tourists Came To New York ... Where A Puny Eight Million People Are Trying To Live. Unless They Own A Hotel Chain, I Don't Think A Single One Of These Eight Million People Are Happy About This.

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 Never Had A Typewriter. I Never Had Any Machines.

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

I Hate Academic Mysteries. As Soon As I Come Across The Word 'don' And It's Not Someone's First Name, I Close The Book.

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

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

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

Falling In Love

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.

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.

The Great Thing About New Jersey Is That It's Close To New York.

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.

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.

One [new York] Eatery Is A Remodeled Diner That Looks Like What Busby Berkeley Would Have Done If Only He Hadn't Had The Money.

I Have The Exact Opposite Problem Of Every Writer I've Ever Met: Every Writer I've Ever Met Writes Things That Are Too Long, And They Have To Edit Them Down.

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. [...] The Other Problem I Have Is Fear Of Writing. The Act Of Writing Puts You In Confrontation With Yourself, Which Is Why I Think Writers Assiduously Avoid Writing. [...] Not Writing Is More Of A Psychological Problem Than A Writing Problem. All The Time I'm Not Writing I Feel Like A Criminal. [...] It's Horrible To Feel Felonious Every Second Of The Day. Especially When It Goes On For Years. It's Much More Relaxing Actually To Work.

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.

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.

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.

When I Was Young, Boys Didn't Type.

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