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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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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
Best
Fellows
Luck
Laugh
Laughing
Witted
Gets
Laughs
Lasts
Fellow
Last
Slow
May
Reputation

More quotes by Leo Rosten

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Where there is too much, something is missing.
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Thinking is harder work than hard work.
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The hardest part of growing up is learning how to wait
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Dogs are getting bigger, according to a leading dog manufacturer.
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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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If a picture is worth a thousand words, please paint me the Gettysburg Address.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Money can't buy happiness, but neither can poverty.
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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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Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.
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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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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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Everyone, in some small sacred sanctuary of the self, is nuts.
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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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If you are going to do something wrong, at least enjoy it.
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.
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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.
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The purpose of life is not to be happy, the purpose of life is to matter.
Leo Rosten