Frases de Fran Lebowitz

“Existe uma cobrança por obras-primas, as pessoas falam? fulano escreveu apenas um livro?. Eu pergunto, e você, quantos escreveu? A imensa maioria das pessoas nunca escreveu nada.”

“Pergunte ao seu filho o que ele quer comer apenas se ele for pagar.”

“O telefone é uma boa maneira de conversar com alguém sem ter de oferecer-lhe um drinque.”

“Eu não quero saber a opinião dos outros. Se eu dou uma palestra, as pessoas vieram para me ouvir, não o contrário.”

“A história da sua vida não daria um bom livro. Nem tente.”

“Na vida real, eu garanto, não existe matemática.”

“Eu gosto de falar, minha vida inteira eu quis isso, pessoas pedindo a minha opinião.”

“Eu nunca conheci alguém cujo filho não fosse um gênio, onde vão parar essas crianças quando crescem?”

“Loteria: acho que, jogando ou não, você tem a mesma chance de ganhar.”

“O sono é a morte sem a responsabilidade.”

“Todos os filhos de Deus não são bonitos, na verdade, eles mal são apresentáveis.”

“Se as pessoas não estão interessadas no que você tem a dizer, por que estariam interessadas no que sua camiseta está dizendo?”

“Meu animal favorito é o bife.”

“O contrário de falar não é ouvir, o contrário de falar é esperar.”

“Serviço de quarto 24 horas: isto geralmente se refere ao tempo que o sanduíche leva para chegar ao apartamento.”

“Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he's buying.”

“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.This hideous religion that’s all over the country — these huge church-malls — that’s what substitutes for these lost towns. But that’s not a town. That’s a cult. A town is diverse, in a real way, not in this fake way we have now. A community is a butcher and a doctor, a minister, a town troublemaker. A "community" is not a bunch of people united by some grievance. That’s just self-righteousness — incredibly dangerous and antidemocratic. People have become so rigid; their opinions seem to them like themselves. When that happens (and it has happened) people can’t change their minds. If you are identified by your opinions — if that is the very basis of yourself — how can you change your mind?”

“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.”

“Children do not really need money. After all, they don't have to pay rent or send mailgrams.”

“Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publication.”

“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.”

“Bread that must be sliced with an ax is bread that is too nourishing.”

“Educational television should be absolutely forbidden. It can only lead to unreasonable expectations and eventual disappointment when your child discovers that the letters of the alphabet do not leap up out of books and dance around the room with royal-blue chickens.”

“Radio news is bearable. This is due to the fact that while the news is being broadcast the disc jockey is not allowed to talk.”

“Remember that as a teenager you are in the last stage of your life when you will be happy to hear the phone is for you.”

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

“If your sexual fantasies were truly of interest to others, they would no longer be fantasies.”

“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.”

“The conversational overachiever is someone whose grasp exceeds his reach. This is possible but not attractive.”

“I don't believe in anything you have to believe in.”

“There's no such thing as advice to the lovelorn. If they took advice, they wouldn't be lovelorn. You see, advice and lovelorn don't go together. Because advice makes love sound like some sort of cognitive activity, but we know that it isn't. We all know that it's some sort of horrible chemical reaction over which we have absolutely no control. And that's why advice doesn't work.”

“Stand firm in your refusal to remain conscious during algebra. In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra.”

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

“Do not elicit your child's political opinions. He doesn't know any more than you do.”

“Rome is a very loony city in every respect. One needs but spend an hour or two there to realize that Fellini makes documentaries.”

“Being a woman is of special interest only to aspiring male transsexuals. To actual women it is simply a good excuse not to play football.”

“Should you be a teenager blessed with uncommon good looks, document this state of affairs by the taking of photographs. It is the only way anyone will ever believe you in years to come.”

“Women who insist on having the same options as men would do well to consider the option of being the strong, silent type.”

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

“How do you know if your child is a writer? Your obstetrician holds his stethoscope to your abdomen and only hears excuses.”

“Life is something to do when you can't get to sleep.”

“Any child who cannot do long division by himself does not deserve to smoke.”

“Most of my news, I get from the radio news stations. One of the stations' advertising lines is "Give us 22 minutes, we’ll give you the world." In 22 minutes, they just have time for the headlines, so they can only really tell you what happened — which, by the way, is the news. They tell you how many people were killed in Iraq today, but they don’t then bring on some Republican senator to explain to you how that’s good. Or, on the contrary, they don’t bring in a bunch of Democrats to tell you why it’s bad. They just tell you what happened. That’s the news. I am capable of analyzing my own news. What makes these people qualified to analyze my news for me? No matter what side they’re on, I never agree with them.”

“I doubt there’s ever been a true thing said on Fox. Maybe the weather report, maybe not.”