The Fran Lebowitz Reader

by Fran Lebowitz

My favorite way to wake up is to have a certain French movie star whisper to me softly at two-thirty in the afternoon that if I want to get to Sweden in time to pick up my Nobel Prize for Literature I had better ring for breakfast. This occurs rather less often than one might wish.

5:10 P.M.—I return to my apartment laden with magazines and spend the remainder of the afternoon reading articles by writers who, regrettably, met their deadlines.

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. Your life story would not make a good book. Do not even try.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, people wanted to be well spoken. Those capable of an elegant turn of phrase were much admired. Wit was in great demand. It was the day of the epigram.

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.

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.

But alas, I do not rule the world and that, I am afraid, is the story of my life—always a godmother, never a God.

A loaf of bread that is more comfortable than a sofa cannot help but be unpalatable.

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.

Generally speaking, it is inhumane to detain a fleeting insight.

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

Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine.

Never allow your child to call you by your first name. He hasn’t known you long enough.

Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he’s buying.

Surrounded by these venerable objects, I cheerfully noted that I had at long last achieved all three of my material goals: new money, old furniture and a separate room to write in.

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.

No animal should ever jump up on the dining-room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation.