Top 300 Fran Lebowitz Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “I never had a typewriter. I never had any machines.”

— Fran Lebowitz

102. “I never met anyone who didn’t have a very smart child. What happens to these children, you wonder, when they reach adulthood?”

— Fran Lebowitz

103. “Generally speaking, it is inhumane to detain a fleeting insight.”

— Fran Lebowitz

104. “I prefer dead writers because you don’t run into them at parties.”

— Fran Lebowitz

105. “I think writing for me has always been a matter of fear. Writing is fear and not writing is fear. I am afraid of writing and then I’m afraid of not writing.”

— Fran Lebowitz

106. “I’m such a slow writer I have no need for anything as fast as a word processor. I don’t need anything so snappy. I write so slowly that I could write in my own blood without hurting myself.”

— Fran Lebowitz

107. “Sarcasm: what they have in New York instead of jacuzzis.”

— Fran Lebowitz

108. “White grapes are very attractive but when it comes to dessert people generally like cake with icing.”

— Fran Lebowitz

109. “I am alternately very gregarious – very sociable – and then very solitary.”

— Fran Lebowitz

110. “But alas, I do not rule the world and that, I am afraid, is the story of my life – always a godmother, never a God.”

— Fran Lebowitz

111. “If I lived in another country, like a country that was, say, an enemy of the United States, I would be more amused than I am.”

— Fran Lebowitz

112. “I love sleep because it is both pleasant and safe to use.”

— Fran Lebowitz

113. “Radio news is bearable. This is due to the fact that while the news is being broadcast, the disk jockey is not allowed to talk.”

— Fran Lebowitz

114. “The main symptom of falling in love is that you lose your intellectual prowess.”

— Fran Lebowitz

115. “Communists all seem to wear small caps, a look I consider better suited to tubes of toothpaste than to people.”

— Fran Lebowitz

116. “Do not elicit your child’s political opinions. He doesn’t know any more than you do.”

— Fran Lebowitz

117. “If there had been a job of being a reader, I would have taken that, because I love to read and I don’t love to write. That would be blissful.”

— Fran Lebowitz

118. “Instead of writing it wrong six times and then writing it right, I think it wrong six times and then write it right the seventh time.”

— Fran Lebowitz

119. “The second thing that distinguishes you, sets you apart from the crowd, is that everybody in the entire world likes his eggs done a different and special way. When it comes to eggs, everyone has his own subtle preference, his own individual taste. So the next time that someone asks you how you like your eggs, speak right up. After all, you only go around once.”

— Fran Lebowitz

120. “People love to feel superior to their past.”

— Fran Lebowitz

121. “In other words, everybody talks about people but nobody ever does anything about them.”

— Fran Lebowitz

122. “The first people who died of AIDS were artists. They were the most interesting people.”

— Fran Lebowitz

123. “If you can stay in love for more than two years, you’re on something.”

— Fran Lebowitz

124. “Never allow your child to call you by your first name. He hasn’t known you long enough.”

— Fran Lebowitz

125. “There’s too much democracy in the culture, not enough in the society.”

— Fran Lebowitz

126. “New Yorkers, we’ve seen Donald Trump for, like, 30 years; we know who he is. So he wasn’t a surprise to me.”

— Fran Lebowitz

127. “The effect of AIDS was like a war in a minute country. Like, in World War I, a whole generation of Englishmen died all at once. And with AIDS, a whole generation of gay men died practically all at once, within a couple of years.”

— Fran Lebowitz

128. “Take away a man’s actual sense of manhood – which is conventionally based on the ability to work, to earn money, to be self-sufficient, to provide for children – and you’ve got to give them something else. And they did.”

— Fran Lebowitz

129. “I’m sure that being sober all these years accounts for my ill humor.”

— Fran Lebowitz

130. “If you removed all of the homosexuals and homosexual influence from what is generally regarded as American culture, you would pretty much be left with Let’s Make a Deal.”

— Fran Lebowitz

131. “Violet will be a good color for hair at just about the same time that brunette becomes a good color for flowers.”

— Fran Lebowitz

132. “The Italians are the most civilized people. And they’re very warm. Basically, they’re Jews with great architecture.”

— Fran Lebowitz

133. “When I was young, I liked romance. But to me, romance is the opposite of domestic life. I just don’t want anyone in the apartment, not for longer than a few hours.”

— Fran Lebowitz

Featured in: Romance Quotes

134. “Marriage entitles women to the protection of a strong man who will steady the stepladder while they paint the kitchen ceiling.”

— Fran Lebowitz

135. “Los Angeles is a large city-like area surrounding the Beverly Hills Hotel.”

— Fran Lebowitz

136. “I walk a lot in New York, not for the exercise but to get from place to place, and because it’s the way of having the least contact with human beings.”

— Fran Lebowitz

137. “Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy.”

— Fran Lebowitz

138. “I love being in love. I don’t think anything compares with it, though I consider it very disruptive.”

— Fran Lebowitz

139. “I hate all jobs. I’ve never had a job I liked.”

— Fran Lebowitz

140. “When you reach a certain age, suddenly there are lots of people younger than you, which is really startling.”

— Fran Lebowitz

141. “I woke up at five o’clock in the morning with the whole first paragraph in my head. Now, this just shows what a slothful person I am: I tried to go back to sleep.”

— Fran Lebowitz

142. “Children are rarely in the position to lend one a truly interesting sum of money. There are, however, exceptions, and such children are an excellent addition to any party.”

— Fran Lebowitz

143. “I hate, simply, to work. I just hate to work, period. I am profoundly slothful. Practically inert.”

— Fran Lebowitz

144. “The conversational overachiever is someone whose grasp exceeds his reach. This is possible but not attractive.”

— Fran Lebowitz

145. “Children ask better questions than adults. “May I have a cookie?” “Why is the sky blue?” and “What does a cow say?” are far more likely to elicit a cheerful response than “Where’s your manuscript?” “Why haven’t you called?” and “Who’s your lawyer?””

— Fran Lebowitz

146. “I have friends, some of whom are spectacularly good writers, who really want someone to edit them. I don’t register that impulse. It’s like the impulse for wanting a dog.”

— Fran Lebowitz

147. “Girls who put out are tramps. Girls who don’t are ladies. This is, however, a rather archaic usage of the word. Should one of you boys happen upon a girl who doesn’t put out, do not jump to the conclusion that you have found a lady. What you have probably found is a Lesbian.”

— Fran Lebowitz

148. “To lose yourself in a book is the desire of the bookworm. I mean to be taken. That is my desire.”

— Fran Lebowitz

149. “Cheese that is required by law to append the word food to its title does not go well with red wine or fruit.”

— Fran Lebowitz

150. “The French probably invented the very notion of discretion. It’s not that they feel that what you don’t know won’t hurt you; they feel that what you don’t know won’t hurt them. To the French lying is simply talking.”

— Fran Lebowitz