Fran Lebowitz
Fran Lebowitz
Frances Ann "Fran" Lebowitzis an American author and public speaker. Lebowitz is known for her sardonic social commentary on American life as filtered through her New York City sensibilities. Some reviewers have called her a modern-day Dorothy Parker...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionEssayist
Date of Birth27 October 1950
CityMorristown, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
eye two parent
I am not personally a parent. But I do have two godchildren and am expecting a third. I am naturally concerned for their future. If I ruled the world you could bet your boots that none of them would ever set their eyes on any such contraptions as digital clocks and pocket calculators. 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.
morning new-york cities
To me the biggest waste of time is commuting. First, there is no place that is less than a two-hour commute from New York. You can be half a mile outside of the city limits; you're two hours away by car. I don't care how close they tell you it is. "Oh, it's only thirty miles." Thirty miles? At 8:30 in the morning, thirty miles outside New York, you might as well be starting out in Omaha.
years sober ill
I'm sure that being sober all these years accounts for my ill humor.
smoking quitting quit-smoking
Will power is not telling anybody you quit smoking.
new-york home would-be
Without these tourists, New York would be fantastic. I don't want them to come. Stay home!
writing thinking hard-times
I have a hard time writing. Most writers have a hard time writing. I have a harder time than most because I'm lazier than most. [...] The other problem I have is fear of writing. The act of writing puts you in confrontation with yourself, which is why I think writers assiduously avoid writing. [...] Not writing is more of a psychological problem than a writing problem. All the time I'm not writing I feel like a criminal. [...] It's horrible to feel felonious every second of the day. Especially when it goes on for years. It's much more relaxing actually to work.
children growing-up book
Until I was about 7, I thought books were just there, like trees. When I learned that people actually wrote them, I wanted to, too, because all children aspire to inhuman feats like flying. Most people grow up to realize they can't fly. Writers are people who don't grow up to realize they can't be God.
smoking innovation done
Technological innovation has done great damage ... to eating habits. Food is now available in such unpleasant forms that one frequently finds smoking between courses to be an aid to digestion.
children men self
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.
new-york thinking eight
The other day I read that last year 58 million tourists came to New York ... where a puny eight million people are trying to live. Unless they own a hotel chain, I don't think a single one of these eight million people are happy about this.
jobs children hate
I used to love to write. As a child I used to write all the time. I loved to write up until the second I got my first professional writing job. It turns out it's not that I hate to write. I hate, simply, to work.
morning sleep firsts
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.
jobs taken writing
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.
integrity thinking different
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.