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

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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.
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Calling a taxi in Texas is like calling a rabbi in Iraq.
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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.
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I think one manifestation of integrity is holding a grudge. Saying no is a little different. Holding a grudge is the modern equivalent of having standards.
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Contrary to popular opinion, the hustle is not a new dance step - it is an old business procedure.
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The Italians are the most civilized people. And they're very warm. Basically, they're Jews with great architecture.
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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.
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Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine.
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No one earns $100 million. You steal $100 million.
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I write a sentence a thousand times, changing it all the time to look at it in different ways.
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New Yorkers, we've seen Donald Trump for, like, 30 years we know who he is. So he wasn't a surprise to me.
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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.
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Writers get exactly the right amount of fame: just enough to get a good table in a restaurant but not enough so that people are constantly interrupting you while you're eating dinner.
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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.
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Romantic love is mental illness. But it's a pleasurable one.
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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.
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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.
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Even when freshly washed and relieved of all obvious confections, children tend to be sticky.
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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.
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Without these tourists, New York would be fantastic. I don't want them to come. Stay home!
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