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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.

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
Problem
Edit
Ever
Edits
Writing
Writes
Every
Exact
Long
Opposite
Things
Opposites
Mets
Writer

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I just write when fear overtakes me.
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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.
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There's nothing like being old to be sure of everything.
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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?
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Spilling your guts is just exactly as charming as it sounds.
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No one I knew talked about money. It's not an area of interest.
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China is not a great idea: capitalism and a dictator. It's like the two worst possible things you could imagine together. It's a very bad idea.
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Even when America is not working that well, it still works better than other places.
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The truth is that most families have no smart ones and no pretty ones. Most families are a bunch of unattractive dopes. And it turns out that the Bush family, like most families, has no smart ones. I was not surprised to see this.
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Luckily when you drive a cab there are two things: You don't have a boss in the cab with you, and you are not facing the people that you are making money from.
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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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People who are well-known, famous people, I think, make very poor characters for fiction. They make good characters for gossip columns. But not for fiction.
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I never wanted to have any extra money, if it meant having to have any extra work.
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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.
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No one's supposed to be the president. This is not England. And it's not just the Bush family, all families designate each child as having some particular trait.
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My dream writing room would be the Imperial Library in Vienna.
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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.
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Will power is not telling anybody you quit smoking.
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Until I was about 7, I thought books were just there, like trees. When I learned that people actually wrote them, I wanted to, too, because all children aspire to inhuman feats like flying. Most people grow up to realize they can't fly. Writers are people who don't grow up to realize they can't be God.
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The conversational overachiever is someone whose grasp exceeds his reach. This is possible but not attractive.
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