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Your life story would not make a good book. Don't even try.

Fran Lebowitz

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Fran Lebowitz
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: October 27
Author
Humorist
Journalist
Orator
Writer
Morristown
NJ
Frances Ann Lebowitz
Robert Paine Cook
Would
Story
Life
Stories
Book
Writing
Even
Trying
Make
Good

More quotes by Fran Lebowitz

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We live in a culture where everyone is perfectly willing to do this [to make a lot of money], and they're just looking for the opportunity. Obviously, a person who is really dumb is not gonna make a zillion dollars. But for a person who is really smart, really smart, it's a boring pursuit. It's not endlessly fascinating.
Fran Lebowitz
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I hate all jobs. I've never had a job I liked.
Fran Lebowitz
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Contrary to popular opinion, the hustle is not a new dance step - it is an old business procedure.
Fran Lebowitz
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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.
Fran Lebowitz
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My dream writing room would be the Imperial Library in Vienna.
Fran Lebowitz
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Will power is not telling anybody you quit smoking.
Fran Lebowitz
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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.
Fran Lebowitz
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[On not reading newspapers:] If something important happens, your mother calls you.
Fran Lebowitz
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Not writing is probably the most exhausting profession I've ever encountered. It takes it out of you. It's very psychically wearing not to write - I mean if you're supposed to be writing.
Fran Lebowitz
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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.
Fran Lebowitz
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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.
Fran Lebowitz
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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.
Fran Lebowitz
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[On the writers she admires:] I prefer dead writers, because I don't see them at parties.
Fran Lebowitz
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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.
Fran Lebowitz
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I always liked people who are older. Of course, every year it gets harder to find them.
Fran Lebowitz
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I do not believe in God. I believe in cashmere.
Fran Lebowitz
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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.
Fran Lebowitz
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Knowingness is sexy. The opposite of sexy is naivete.
Fran Lebowitz
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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.
Fran Lebowitz
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For the movie review columns, I always knew exactly what I was going to write about - the movies.
Fran Lebowitz