Quote

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?

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
Writing
Words
Opposite
Much
Natural
Opposites
Make
Often
Gonna
Think
Write
Writers
Thinking
Problem
Thousand
Condense
Anything
Almost
Kidding
Feel
Five
Paragraph
Feels
Ability
Exact

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All God's children are not beautiful. Most of God's children are, in fact, barely presentable.
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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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.
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I walk a lot in New York, not for the exercise but to get from place to place, and because it's the way of having the least contact with human beings.
Fran Lebowitz
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Think before you speak. Read before you think.
Fran Lebowitz
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...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.
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I hate, simply, to work. I just hate to work, period. I am profoundly slothful. Practically inert.
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Never relinquish clothing to a hotel valet without first specifically telling him that you want it back.
Fran Lebowitz
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The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.
Fran Lebowitz
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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.
Fran Lebowitz
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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.
Fran Lebowitz
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Children do not really need money. After all, they don't have to pay rent or send mailgrams.
Fran Lebowitz
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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.
Fran Lebowitz
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There's nothing like being old to be sure of everything.
Fran Lebowitz
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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.
Fran Lebowitz
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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.
Fran Lebowitz
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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.
Fran Lebowitz
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Writing pornography is deadly, nothing duller. I mean a toll-taker has a more exciting life than a pornographer.
Fran Lebowitz
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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.
Fran Lebowitz
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Perhaps the least cheering statement ever made on the subject of art is that life imitates it.
Fran Lebowitz