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There's No Such Thing As Advice To The Lovelorn. If They Took Advice, They Wouldn't Be Lovelorn. You See, Advice And Lovelorn Don't Go Together. Because Advice Makes Love Sound Like Some Sort Of Cognitive Activity, But We Know That It Isn't. We All Know That It's Some Sort Of Horrible Chemical Reaction Over Which We Have Absolutely No Control. And That's Why Advice Doesn't Work.

-Fran Lebowitz

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There's No Such Thing

Fran Lebowitz

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There's No Such Thing As Advice To The Lovelorn. If They Took Advice, They Wouldn't Be Lovelorn. You See, Advice And Lovelorn Don't Go Together. Because Advice Makes Love Sound Like Some Sort Of Cognitive Activity, But We Know That It Isn't. We All Know That It's Some Sort Of Horrible Chemical Reaction Over Which We Have Absolutely No Control. And That's Why Advice Doesn't Work.

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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.

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.

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

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

Cold Soup Is A Very Tricky Thing And It Is A 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

My Favorite Animal Is Steak.

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

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.

I Have Always Preferred The Company Of Older People. No One In The History Of The World Has Had Less Interest In The Young Than I Do. I Am Not Interested In What Young People Are Thinking. They're Thinking Less Than Old People, Of Course. I Mean, What Could They Be Thinking? And What Are They Doing? They're Doing The Same Stupid Things You Did.

Civilised Adults Do Not Take Apple Juice With Dinner.

I Love Sleep Because It Is Both Pleasant And Safe To Use.

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

Contrary To Popular Opinion, The Hustle Is Not A New Dance Step - It Is An Old Business Procedure.

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."

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.

All Of Television's Appalling, But This Is Hardly A New Statement.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

I Am A New Yorker. I Like New York. And I Like Cities. And It's Not My Desire To Make New York More Suburban. I Would Personally Just Like To Vet Each Person.

There Are Some Short Essays That Are Very Grave, And Most Contemporary Novels Are Lighter Than Air.

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

I Used To Rent A House In Princeton, New Jersey, And Whenever People Came To Visit Me, I Would Drive Them Past Albert Einstein's House, Which Is The Most Ordinary House In Princeton - A House, Let Me Assure You, That Now A Salesman Wouldn't Live In. I'd Always Say, "that Was Albert Einstein's House." And They'd Say, "what Do You Mean? Why Would Albert Einstein Live In A Little House Like That?" And I'd Always Say To People, "because He Didn't Care!"

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

I Always Make A Big Effort To Make A Distinction Between What Is Actually Worse Or What Is Just Worse About Not Being 21. Of Course, It's Much Worse Not To Be 21. This Is A Given. But There Are Things That Are Worse.

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

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

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.

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Do Not Have Your Child's Hair Cut By A Real Hairdresser In A Real Hairdressing Salon. He Is, At This Point, Far Too Short To Be Exposed To Contempt.

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

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Think Before You Speak. Read Before You Think.

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.

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

That I Am Totally Devoid Of Sympathy For, Or Interest In, The World Of Groups Is Directly Attributable To The Fact That My Two Greatest Needs And Desires - Smoking Cigarettes And Plotting Revenge - Are Basically Solitary Pursuits.

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Being Offended Is A Natural Consequence Of Leaving The House.

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

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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.

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Your Life Story Would Not Make A Good Book. Don't Even Try.

There Is Nothing More Mine Than My Writing, Nothing I'm More Proprietary About.

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Should You Be A Teenager Blessed With Uncommon Good Looks, Document This State Of Affairs By The Taking Of Photographs. It Is The Only Way Anyone Will Ever Believe You In Years To Come.

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.

If You're Going To America, Bring Your Own Food.

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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.

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.

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

Food Is An Important Part Of A Balanced Diet.

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.

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?

One Of The Big Mistakes They Made In Europe Is That The Circumstances In Which You Most Frequently Read Or Hear The Word "race" Or "racism" In Europe Applies To Muslims. Which Is Not A Race. It Is A Religion. You Can Convert To This. You Cannot Convert Your Race. I Could Become A Muslim. I Could Not Become A Chinese Person Or A Black Person. So They Constantly Use That In Europe.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

You Don't Have To Lay An Egg To Know If It Tastes Good.

Children Are The Most Desirable Opponents At Scrabble As They Are Both Easy To Beat And Fun To Cheat.

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.

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.

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

Falling In Love

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.

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.

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

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

Nothing Succeeds Like Address.

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

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.

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.

What's So Great Thing About Clothes Is That They're Artificial - You Can Lie, You Can Choose The Way You Look, Which Is Not True Of Natural Beauty. So If You're Naturally Beautiful, Wear What You Want, But That's 01% Of People. Most People Just Aren't Good Looking Enough To Wear What They Have On. They Should Change. They Should Get Some Slacks And A Nice Overcoat. Remember When The Style Was Incredibly Messy Hair? That's Great If You're A Model. But If You're Not A Model, You Would Look Better If You Washed Your Hair, Because You Are Not Beautiful.

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

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.

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.

Things That People Will Say To Me, Mostly, Is That You Shouldn't Have All These Books. It's Too Expensive.

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.

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

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

Why Not Have Your First Baby At Sixty, When Your Husband Is Already Dead And Your Career Is Over? Then You Can Really Devote Yourself To It.

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

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

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

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.

There's No Such Thing As Advice To The Lovelorn. If They Took Advice, They Wouldn't Be Lovelorn.

Anti-smoking Sentiment Has Replaced Middle-class Morality Entirely. The Smoker Has Taken The Place Of The Homosexual. Today You Hear People Say Things About Smokers That Used To Be Said About Homosexuals - They Pollute The Environment; You Don't Want Them Around Your Children.

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

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

People Elect The President For Reasons That Have Nothing To Do With His Ability To Be President.

I Just Write When Fear Overtakes Me.

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.

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.

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.

Abandon The Search For Truth; Settle For A Good Fantasy

I Doubt There's Ever Been A True Thing Said On Fox. Maybe The Weather Report, Maybe Not.

[on Parenthood:] You Can't Change Your Mind--you Know, And Say, This Isn't Working Out, Let's Sell.

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.

[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.

Even When America Is Not Working That Well, It Still Works Better Than Other Places.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

If In Addition To Being Physically Unattractive You Find That You Do Not Get Along Well With Others, Do Not Under Any Circumstances Attempt To Alleviate This Situation By Developing An Interesting Personality. An Interesting Personality, Is, In An Adult, Insufferable. In A Teenager It Is Frequently Punishable By Law.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

I've Always Been Old At Heart.

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

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

Romantic Love Is Mental Illness. But It's A Pleasurable One.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

It's Very Disheartening To Encounter A Fearful Twenty-one Year Old. They Haven't Earned The Right To Be That Afraid. It's Not Like We're Living In War-torn Bosnia Or Something.

I Always Liked People Who Are Older. Of Course, Every Year It Gets Harder To Find Them.

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

Sleep Is Death Without The Responsibility.

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.

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 Believe In Talent. I Know You're Not Supposed To Believe In That Anymore Because You're Supposed To Believe If You Just Work Hard You Can Do Anything. That's How You Succeed, Maybe. But Talent Is Something You're Born With. You Cannot Acquire It By Working Hard, And You Cannot Lose It By Lying Around Either.

White Grapes Are Very Attractive But When It Comes To Dessert People Generally Like Cake With Icing.

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.

Screenwriting Is Not An Artform, It Is A Punishment From God.

If There Were, Say, Only 10 Percent Of The Hotels That Exist Now, There Would Be All These Apartments For People Who Live In New York, As Opposed To People Visiting New York. And Then All This Junk In The Theater, We Would No Longer Need The Kind Of Stuff That Tourists Like.

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.

In The Soviet Union, Capitalism Triumphed Over Communism. In This Country, Capitalism Triumphed Over Democracy.

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

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'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.

Generally Speaking, The Poorer Person Summers Where He Winters.

[friendships] Are Easy To Get Out Of Compared To Love Affairs, But They Are Not Easy To Get Out Of Compared To, Say, Jail.

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.

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.

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Clarice Lispector

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