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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
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Political Scientist
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Leo Calvin Rosten
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More quotes by 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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Satire is focused bitterness.
Leo Rosten
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I came to believe it not true that the coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man only one. I think it is the other way around: It is the brave who die a thousand deaths. For it is imagination, and not just conscience, which doth make cowards of us all. Those who do not know fear are not truly brave.
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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Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.
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
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Acting is a form of deception, and actors can mesmerize themselves almost as easily as an audience.
Leo Rosten
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The hardest part of growing up is learning how to wait
Leo Rosten
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What's green, hangs on a wall and whistles? [A Herring]
Leo Rosten
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The purpose of life is not to be happy, the purpose of life is to matter.
Leo Rosten
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Her cooking suggested she had attended the Cordon Noir.
Leo Rosten
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Everyone, in some small sacred sanctuary of the self, is nuts.
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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Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined.
Leo Rosten
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A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood.
Leo Rosten
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I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.
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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Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed.
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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Dogs are getting bigger, according to a leading dog manufacturer.
Leo Rosten