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Humor is, I think, the subtlest and chanciest of literary forms. It is surely not accidental that there are a thousand novelists, essayists, poets or journalists for each humorist. It is a long, long time between James Thurbers.

Leo Rosten

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Leo Rosten
Age: 88 †
Born: 1908
Born: January 1
Died: 1997
Died: January 1
Lexicographer
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Novelist
Political Scientist
Screenwriter
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Lodz
Leo Calvin Rosten
Humor
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Thousand
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Subtlest
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Poets
Humorist
Long
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Essayists
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Laughter
Journalists
Poet
James

More quotes by Leo Rosten

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In the dark colony of night, when I consider man's magnificent capacity for malice, madness, folly, envy, rage, and destructiveness, and I wonder whether we shall not end up as breakfast for newts and polyps, I seem to hear the muffled cries of all the words in all the books with covers closed.
Leo Rosten
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Where there is too much, something is missing.
Leo Rosten
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Where was it ever promised us that life on this earth can ever be easy, free from conflict and uncertainty, devoid of anguish and wonder and pain? … The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.
Leo Rosten
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The first printed mention of bagels... is to be found in the Community Regulations of Kracow, Poland, for the year 1610 which stated that bagels would be given as a gift to any woman in childbirth.
Leo Rosten
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Words must surely be counted among the most powerful drugs man ever invented.
Leo Rosten
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The love of money is the source of an enormous amount of good the fact that the good is a by-product of the selfish pursuit of riches has nothing to do with its indisputable value.
Leo Rosten
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What's green, hangs on a wall and whistles? [A Herring]
Leo Rosten
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Money can't buy happiness, but neither can poverty.
Leo Rosten
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Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined.
Leo Rosten
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Her cooking suggested she had attended the Cordon Noir.
Leo Rosten
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Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable.
Leo Rosten
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Everyone, in some small sacred sanctuary of the self, is nuts.
Leo Rosten
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You can learn much about life from a checker game: surrender one to take two don't make two moves at one time move up, not down and when you reach the top, you may move as you like.
Leo Rosten
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If you are going to do something wrong, at least enjoy it.
Leo Rosten
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If at first you don't succeed, before you try again, stop to figure out what you did wrong.
Leo Rosten
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The hardest part of growing up is learning how to wait
Leo Rosten
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Extremists think 'communication' means agreeing with them.
Leo Rosten
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Machines certainly can solve problems, store information, correlate, and play games - but not with pleasure.
Leo Rosten
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Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.
Leo Rosten
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The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that, perhaps, is what makes him different from others.
Leo Rosten