Top 35 Ira Levin Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Anyone who needs more than one suitcase is a tourist, not a traveler.”

— Ira Levin

2. “Being happy or unhappy – is that really the most important thing? Knowing the truth would be a different kind of happiness – a more satisfying kind, I think, even if it turned out to be a sad kind.”

— Ira Levin

3. “What we are probably given is a mixture of truth and untruth. It’s anybody’s guess as to which part is which and how much there is of each.”

— Ira Levin

4. “They never stop, these Stepford wives. They something something all their lives. Work like robots. Yes, that would fit. They work like robots all their lives.”

— Ira Levin

5. “What’s the going price for a stay-in-the-kitchen wife with big boobs and no demands?”

— Ira Levin

6. “Today the combat takes a different shape; instead of wishing to put man in a prison, woman endeavors to escape from one; she no longer seeks to drag him into the realms of immanence but to emerge, herself, into the light of transcendence. Now the attitude of the males creates a new conflict: it is with a bad grace that the man lets her go.”

— Ira Levin

7. “They promised me you wouldn’t be hurt,” he said. “And you haven’t been, really. I mean, suppose you’d had a baby and lost it; wouldn’t it be the same? And we’re getting so much in return, Ro.”

— Ira Levin

8. “Someday, he thought, I would like to meet a monster who looked like a monster.”

— Ira Levin

9. “One great difference between good writing, that readers overlook, and bad writing, that they fail to notice, has to do with the number of rewrites and revisions usually required by the former. It isn’t at all easy to write clear, declarative prose – transparency evolves from ruthless cutting and trimming and is hard work – while lumpy, tangle-footed writing flows from the pen as if inspired by the Muse.”

— Ira Levin

10. “Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse had signed a lease on a five-room apartment in a geometric white house on First Avenue when they received word, from a woman named Mrs. Cortez, that a four-room apartment in the Bramford had become available.”

— Ira Levin

11. “When you’re older you’ll come to realize that acts of kindness are few and far between in this world of ours.”

— Ira Levin

12. “Padded Wagon. The painters came on Wednesday the.”

— Ira Levin

13. “Like so many unhappinesses, this one had begun with silence in the place of honest open talk.”

— Ira Levin

14. “Les gens qui ont besoin de plus qu une valise ne sont pas de vrais voyageurs, ce sont des touristes.”

— Ira Levin

15. “That green stuff outside is grass, and the yellow stuff coming down on it is sunshine.”

— Ira Levin

16. “I finally did work out a very good relationship with my father, but it was rough growing up. We had a lot of conflict, and I think it surfaced in many of my works.”

— Ira Levin

17. “A chance to sit quietly and find out who you are; where you’ve been and where you’re going.”

— Ira Levin

18. “I’d like to have a spice garden some day,” Rosemary said. “Out of the city, of course. If Guy ever gets a movie offer we’re going to grab it and go live in Los Angeles. I’m a country girl at heart.”

— Ira Levin

19. “Joanna’s period was late but came, thank God and the Pill.”

— Ira Levin

20. “Did you lose the game? Losing’s the same as winning; you know that, don’t you?” The.”

— Ira Levin

21. “It is a paradox that the more egalitarian society becomes, the more important an individual’s genes will be. Where opportunity is completely open – should a child’s background ever become entirely irrelevant in their attainment – innate advantages will still create division.”

— Ira Levin

22. “You’re not going to get any true confessions out of me,” she said. “I’m a Leo, and our thing is changing the subject.”

— Ira Levin

23. “The thing to do was kill it. Obviously.”

— Ira Levin

24. “Before that I wanted to be a magazine illustrator – I probably would have painted Gothic scenes.”

— Ira Levin

25. “I didn’t send back any of the royalty checks.”

— Ira Levin

26. “No, thanks, we’re not keen on cat pix.”

— Ira Levin

27. “Had he wanted to get her out of the apartment that night for some reason?”

— Ira Levin

28. “Hessen? Dr. Mengele. Everything’s fine, there’s nothing to worry about. Exactly the amateur I expected. I don’t think he even understood German. Send the boys home to practice their signatures; it was just an excitement to round off the evening. No, not till 1977, I’m afraid; I fly back to the compound as soon as we clean up. So go with God, Horst. And say it for me to the others: ‘Go with God.’” He hung up and said, “Heil Hitler.”

— Ira Levin

29. “And you’ll put a deposit on the house tomorrow?”

— Ira Levin

30. “Chip frowned and looked at Lilac. She was packing books into the carton, not looking at him. He looked back at King and sought words. ‘It would still be worth knowing,’ he said. ‘Being happy or unhappy – is that really the most important thing? Knowing the truth would be a different kind of happiness – a more satisfying kind, I think, even if it turned out to be a sad kind.”

— Ira Levin

31. “They gave Mrs. Cortez a check for five hundred and eighty-three dollars – a month’s rent in advance and a month’s rent as security –.”

— Ira Levin

32. “But why had he lied about the tickets?”

— Ira Levin

33. “The garlic bread!’ Rosemary cried.”

— Ira Levin

34. “On the sidewalk Terry lay, watching the sky with one eye, half of her face gone to red pulp. Tan blanket flipped over her. Settling, it reddened in one place and then another. Rosemary wheeled, eyes shut, right hand making an automatic cross. She kept her mouth tightly closed, afraid she might vomit.”

— Ira Levin

35. “Bueno, hay un par de homosexuales; pero eso son anormales normales.”

— Ira Levin

36. “Charmaine was Miss Vamp, provocative and come-hithery in floor-length white silk cut clear to her navel; Dave and Shep were provoked and went thither.”

— Ira Levin

37. “It was Mrs. Castevet and with her another woman, short, plump and smiling, with a “Buckley for Mayor” button on the shoulder of her green dress.”

— Ira Levin