Frances Ann Lebowitz is an American author, speaker and occasional actor.
Famous for her sharp commentary on American culture from a New York perspective, she has been likened to Dorothy Parker by The New York Times.
Prominent figures like Andy Warhol and Martin Scorsese were part of her circle in the 1970s-80s.
Her well-known books, “Metropolitan Life” (1978) and “Social Studies” (1981), were later merged into “The Fran Lebowitz Reader” (1994).
Scorsese directed two projects about her, including Netflix’s “Pretend It’s a City” (2021).
Born in Morristown, New Jersey, she loved reading but struggled academically, especially with algebra.
She was influenced by James Baldwin and had various jobs before entering the writing world.
Her early career saw her working for magazines, leading to the publication of her first book in 1978.
Fran Lebowitz most famous books are Metropolitan Life and Social Studies.
Here are some of the top quotes by Fran Lebowitz.
Best Fran Lebowitz Quotes
I do not believe in God. I believe in cashmere. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
A salad is not a meal, it is a style. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
If thine enemy offend thee, give his child a drum. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Abandon the search for Truth; settle for a good fantasy. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
You’re only as good as your last haircut. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Never allow your child to call you by your first name. He hasn’t known you long enough. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Tolerance is really a better thing than understanding. Because it doesn’t agitate against human nature. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
I never wanted to have any extra money, if it meant having to have any extra work. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Bread that must be sliced with an axe is bread that is too nourishing. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Your life story would not make a good book. Don’t even try. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Being offended is a natural consequence of leaving the house. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
There are too many books. The books are terrible. And this is because you have been taught to have self-esteem. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Think before you speak. Read before you think. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Famous Fran Lebowitz Quotes
Los Angeles is a large city-like area surrounding the Beverly Hills Hotel. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
I hate writing. I will do anything to avoid it. The only way I could write less was if I was dead. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
There is no such thing as inner peace. There is only nervousness and death. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
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.
Smoking is, if not my life, then at least my hobby. I love to smoke. Smoking is fun. Smoking is cool. Smoking is, as far as I am concerned, the entire point of being an adult. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
No one earns $100 million. You steal $100 million. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
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.
Violet will be a good color for hair at just about the same time that brunette becomes a good color for flowers. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Marriage entitles women to the protection of a strong man who will steady the stepladder while they paint the kitchen ceiling. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Popular Fran Lebowitz Quotes
If people don’t want to listen to you, what makes you think they want to hear from your sweater? ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Humility is no substitute for a good personality. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Designer clothes worn by children are like snowsuits worn by adults. Few can carry it off successfully. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
It would also have been helpful to have gone to a Catholic grammar school. The only people who know grammar are those people who went to Catholic grammar school. Those nuns beat it into them. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
There’s too much democracy in the culture, not enough in the society. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
If people don’t hold grudges, it means they just don’t care what people do. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Contrary to popular opinion, the hustle is not a new dance step – it is an old business procedure. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Your responsibility as a parent is never great as the case is with the mother. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Great Fran Lebowitz Quotes
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.
In the Soviet Union, capitalism triumphed over communism. In this country, capitalism triumphed over democracy. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Food is an important part of a balanced diet. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
The telephone is a good way to talk to people without having to offer them a drink. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Think before you speak. Read before you think. This will give you something to think about that you didn’t make up yourself – a wise move at any age, but most especially at seventeen, when you are in the greatest danger of coming to annoying conclusions. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater suggest that he wear a tail. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
I write a sentence a thousand times, changing it all the time to look at it in different ways. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
When it comes to sports I am not particularly interested. Generally speaking, I look upon them as dangerous and tiring activities performed by people with whom I share nothing except the right to trial by jury. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Middle class was defined by having certain values and only a certain amount of money. But this new middle class seems to have absolutely no values and an unlimited amount of money. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Vegetables are interesting but lack a sense of purpose when unaccompanied by a good cut of meat. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Top Fran Lebowitz Quotes
The Italians are the most civilized people. And they’re very warm. Basically, they’re Jews with great architecture. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Rome is a very loony city in every respect. One needs but spend an hour or two there to realize that Fellini makes documentaries. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Randomness scares people. Religion is a way to explain randomness. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Notoriously insensitive to subtle shifts in mood, children will persist in discussing the color of a recently sighted cement-mixer long after one’s own interest in the topic has waned. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
When I was young, boys didn’t type. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
If you read a lot, nothing is as great as you’ve imagined. Venice is – Venice is better. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Any child who cannot do long division by himself does not deserve to smoke. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Life is something that happens when you can’t get to sleep. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
China is not a great idea: capitalism and a dictator. It’s like the two worst possible things you could imagine together. It’s a very bad idea. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
I hate, simply, to work. I just hate to work, period. I am profoundly slothful. Practically inert. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Thought-Provoking Fran Lebowitz Quotes
Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
When Toni Morrison said ‘write the book you want to read,’ she didn’t mean everybody. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
I write so slowly, I could write with my own blood and not hurt myself. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
I’m sure that being sober all these years accounts for my ill humor. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
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.
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.
All God’s children are not beautiful. Most of God’s children are, in fact, barely presentable. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
The first people who died of AIDS were artists. They were the most interesting people. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Sleep is death without the responsibility. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
I place a high moral value on the way people behave. I find it repellent to have a lot, and to behave with anything other than courtesy in the old sense of the word – politeness of the heart, a gentleness of the spirit. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Being poor is like being a child. Being rich is like being an adult: you get to do whatever you want. Everyone is nice when they have to be; rich people are nice when they feel like it. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Spilling your guts is just exactly as charming as it sounds. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
All style is personal – that’s what distinguishes it from fashion. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
I’m like the laziest person who ever lived. It’s amazing to me I even sit up. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Profound Fran Lebowitz Quotes
By the time everyone catches up with you, you’re bored. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
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.
I think one manifestation of integrity is holding a grudge. Saying no is a little different. Holding a grudge is the modern equivalent of having standards. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
I hate money. It is boring and it is arithmetic. The two things I hate the most. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Success didn’t spoil me, I’ve always been insufferable. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Large, naked, raw carrots are acceptable as food only to those who live in hutches eagerly awaiting Easter. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Why not have your first baby at sixty, when your husband is already dead and your career is over? Then you can really devote yourself to it. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
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.
You don’t have to lay an egg to know if it tastes good. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
No one I knew talked about money. It’s not an area of interest. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
A dog who thinks he is a man’s best friend is a dog who obviously has never met a tax lawyer. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
Inspiring Fran Lebowitz Quotes
I’m a horrible girlfriend. I always was. I’m great at the beginning, because I can be very romantic. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
A woman’s quest in life should be to find the perfect apartment. And I have found the perfect apartment. The perfect apartment is the first floor of the Metropolitan Museum. With a sofa. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
The opposite of talking isn’t listening. The opposite of talking is waiting. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
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.
Generally speaking, the poorer person summers where he winters. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
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.
I hate all jobs. I’ve never had a job I liked. ~ Fran Lebowitz.
So these were the 87 top Fran Lebowitz quotes and sayings.
If you like these quotes and sayings, then you can also read my other posts on Eugene Debs quotes and Ken Kesey quotes.
