Quote

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.

Fran Lebowitz

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Fran Lebowitz
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: October 27
Author
Humorist
Journalist
Orator
Writer
Morristown
NJ
Frances Ann Lebowitz
Robert Paine Cook
Feels
French
Notion
Simply
Probably
Hurt
Talking
Lying
Discretion
Feel
Invented

More quotes by Fran Lebowitz

Image
Abandon the search for Truth settle for a good fantasy
Fran Lebowitz
Image
It is not true that there is dignity in all work. Some jobs are definitely better than others.
Fran Lebowitz
Image
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.
Fran Lebowitz
Image
Your life story would not make a good book. Don't even try.
Fran Lebowitz
Image
I never would start writing before midnight and I would finish at, like, seven in the morning.
Fran Lebowitz
Image
Frenchman: Germans with good food.
Fran Lebowitz
Image
I write a sentence a thousand times, changing it all the time to look at it in different ways.
Fran Lebowitz
Image
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.
Fran Lebowitz
Image
Notoriously insensitive to subtle shifts in mood, children will persist in discussing the color of a recently sighted cement-mixer long after one's own interest in the topic has waned.
Fran Lebowitz
Image
I stopped taking drugs when I was 19, and who wants to drive a cab around New York with drugs in their car?
Fran Lebowitz
Image
A salad is not a meal, it is a style.
Fran Lebowitz
Image
...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.
Fran Lebowitz
Image
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.
Fran Lebowitz
Image
Your responsibility as a parent is not as great as you might imagine. You need not supply the world with the next conqueror of disease or major motion picture star. If your child simply grows up to be someone who does not use the word collectible as a noun, you can consider yourself an unqualified success.
Fran Lebowitz
Image
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.
Fran Lebowitz
Image
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
Image
No animal should ever jump up on the dining-room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation.
Fran Lebowitz
Image
Breakfast cereals that come in the same colors as polyester leisure suits make oversleeping a virtue.
Fran Lebowitz
Image
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
Image
The first people who died of AIDS were artists. They were the most interesting people.
Fran Lebowitz