Fran Lebowitz: Whenever someone accuses someone of being a racist

Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass.

Fran Lebowitz

writing sweet art

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

house heart people

A salad is not a meal, it is a style.

Fran Lebowitz

salad style meals

Romantic love is mental illness. But it's a pleasurable one. It's a drug. It distorts reality, and that's the point of it. It would be impossible to fall in love with someone that you really saw. The second you meet someone that you're going to fall in love with you deliberately become a moron. You do this in order to fall in love, because it would be impossible to fall in love with any human being if you actually saw them for what they are.

Fran Lebowitz

broken-heart falling-in-love love-you

Raisins are a thing that lasts, they come in small boxes, and you always feel like eating raisins, even at six in the morning. A raisin is always an appropriate snack.

Fran Lebowitz

snacks food morning

Think before you speak. Read before you think.

Fran Lebowitz

wisdom inspirational book

What do they do in these [private] clubs, anyway? Sit around saying things like 'Thank God I'm here. No Jews! What fun! This is living, huh? Look! No Jews! I don't know when I've had a better time. And no women! Just men! And no blacks! Just whites! White men! White men who are not Jewish! It doesn't get any better than this.' To some people, apparently, this is a perfect description of injustice. To me, this is a perfect description of a gay bar in Iceland.

Fran Lebowitz

gay fun men

While clothes with pictures and/or writing on them are not entirely an invention of the modern age, they are an unpleasant indication of the general state of things. ... I mean, be realistic. If people don't want to listen to you, what makes you think they want to hear from your sweater?

Fran Lebowitz

writing mean thinking

Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born to people you could not have possibly met.

Fran Lebowitz

original-thought women people

You can be nasty when you are young, but you really have to be older to achieve bitterness.

Fran Lebowitz

bitterness achieve nasty

In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra.

Fran Lebowitz

real math inspirational

The terrible state of public education has paid huge dividends in ignorance. Huge. We now have a country that can be told blatant lies - easily checkable, blatant lies - and I'm not talking about the covert workings of the CIA. When we have a terrorist attack, on September 11, 2001 with 19 men - 15 of them are Saudis - and five minutes later the whole country thinks they're from Iraq - how can you have faith in the public? This is an easily checkable fact. The whole country is like the O.J. Simpson jurors.

Fran Lebowitz

ignorance country lying

Designer clothes worn by children are like snowsuits worn by adults. Few can carry it off successfully.

Fran Lebowitz

designer-clothes adults children

While it is undeniably true that people love a surprise, it is equally true that they are seldom pleased to suddenly and without warning happen upon a series of prunes in what they took to be a normal loin of pork.

Fran Lebowitz

pork food people

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

wise moving thinking

The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.

Fran Lebowitz

hope inspirational funny

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

women gay girl

My favorite animal is steak.

Fran Lebowitz

animal food life

One of the biggest changes in my lifetime, is the phenomenon of men wearing shorts. Men never wore shorts when I was young. This is one of the worst changes, by far. It's disgusting. To have to sit next to grown men on the subway in the summer, and they're wearing shorts? They look ridiculous, like children, and I can't take them seriously. My fashion advice, particularly to men wearing shorts: Ask yourself, 'Could I make a living modeling these shorts?' If the answer is no, then change your clothes. Put on a pair of pants.

Fran Lebowitz

fashion summer children

I believe in talking behind peoples' backs. That way, they hear it more than once.

Fran Lebowitz

talking believe way

Whenever someone accuses someone of being a racist - which is rare, you have to admit, considering how much racism there is - there is an incredible outrage. I realized that we live in an environment that it seems to be worse to call someone a racist than to be one.