Fran Lebowitz Quotes

There are some short essays that are very grave, and most contemporary novels are lighter than air.

I love sleep because it is both pleasant and safe to use. Pleasant because one is in the best possible company and safe because sleep is the consummate protection against the unseemliness that is the invariable consequence of being awake. What you don’t know won’t hurt you. Sleep is death without the responsibility.

People who get married because they’re in love make a ridiculous mistake. It makes much more sense to marry your best friend. You like your best friend more than anyone you’re ever going to be in love with. You dont choose your best friend because they have a cute nose.

Breakfast cereals that come in the same colors as polyester leisure suits make oversleeping a virtue.

Your responsibility as a parent is never great as the case is with the mother.

The first time I ever saw platform shoes in the ’70s, I knew they’d been revived from the ’40s, and I felt sickened. And for whatever reason, they keep getting revived. They’ve come back four times. I wish we could let them die. They want to die. They were horrible then, they’re horrible now.

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.

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

If, while watching the sun set on a used-car lot in Los Angeles, you are struck by the parallels between this image and the inevitable fate of humanity, do not, under any circumstances, write it down.

Did it ever occur to anyone that if you put nice libraries in public schools you wouldn’t have to put them in prisons?

No animal should ever jump up on the dining-room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation.

To me, the main difference between young people now and the people I was young with isn’t so much style, it’s the relationships they have with their parents. Their parents like them much more than ours liked us. Our parents weren’t our friends. But now I see my friends on the phones with their, what, 30 – year – old kids? And they’re talking about feelings.