Quote

You understand people better if you look at them-no matter how old or impressive or important they may be-as if they were children. For most men never mature they simply grow taller.

Leo Rosten

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Leo Rosten
Age: 88 †
Born: 1908
Born: January 1
Died: 1997
Died: January 1
Lexicographer
Linguist
Novelist
Political Scientist
Screenwriter
Writer
Lodz
Leo Calvin Rosten
Looks
Grow
Children
Simply
Important
Grows
Never
Understand
Men
May
People
Better
Taller
Look
Impressive
Matter
Mature

More quotes by 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.
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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.
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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.
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What's green, hangs on a wall and whistles? [A Herring]
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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.
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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.
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The purpose of life is not to be happy, the purpose of life is to matter.
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Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.
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Acting is a form of deception, and actors can mesmerize themselves almost as easily as an audience.
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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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If at first you don't succeed, before you try again, stop to figure out what you did wrong.
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O, to be sure, we laugh less and play less and wear uncomfortable disguises like adults, but beneath the costume is the child we always are, whose needs are simple, whose daily life is still best described by fairy tales.
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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Where there is too much, something is missing.
Leo Rosten
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Hope is ambiguous, but fear is precious.
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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.
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Words must surely be counted among the most powerful drugs man ever invented.
Leo Rosten
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The fellow who laughs last may laugh best, but he gets the reputation of being very slow-witted.
Leo Rosten
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If you are going to do something wrong, at least enjoy it.
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