Leo Rosten Quotes
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Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed.
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Dogs are getting bigger, according to a leading dog manufacturer.
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Why did God give me two ears and one mouth? So that I will hear more and talk less.
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Words must surely be counted among the most powerful drugs man ever invented.
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I sometimes think there is a dimension beyond the four of experience and Einstein: insight, that fifth dimension which promises to liberate us from bondage to the long, imperfect past
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Her cooking suggested she had attended the Cordon Noir.
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I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.
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What's green, hangs on a wall and whistles? [A Herring]
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The hardest part of growing up is learning how to wait
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First-rate people hire first-rate people; second-rate people hire third-rate people.
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Machines certainly can solve problems, store information, correlate, and play games - but not with pleasure.
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Humor is, I think, the subtlest and chanciest of literary forms. It is surely not accidental that there are a thousand novelists, essayists, poets or journalists for each humorist. It is a long, long time between James Thurbers.
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For some not to be martyrs is martyrdom indeed.
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If at first you don't succeed, before you try again, stop to figure out what you did wrong.
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You can learn much about life from a checker game: surrender one to take two; don't make two moves at one time; move up, not down; and when you reach the top, you may move as you like.
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The fellow who laughs last may laugh best, but he gets the reputation of being very slow-witted.
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Words sing. They hurt. They teach. They sanctify. They were man's first, immeasurable feat of magic. They liberated us from ignorance and our barbarous past.
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Hope is ambiguous, but fear is precious.
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Many [of the Americans] polled showed a marked disapproval of the Wallonians, Danerians, and Pirenians. The fact that these minorities were invented by the pollster did not diminish the hostility.
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It is not that which is beautiful that pleases us, but that which pleases is is called beautiful.
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Some things are so unexpected that no one is prepared for them.
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I came to believe it not true that "the coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man only one." I think it is the other way around: It is the brave who die a thousand deaths. For it is imagination, and not just conscience, which doth make cowards of us all. Those who do not know fear are not truly brave.
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Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.
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Happiness, in the ancient, noble sense, means self-fulfillment—and is given to those who use to the fullest whatever talents God … bestowed upon them.
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There was no answer, no solution, no sop, no deliverance. What, then, did I do? I read faster.
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Where was it ever promised us that life on this earth can ever be easy, free from conflict and uncertainty, devoid of anguish and wonder and pain? … The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.
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A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead.
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The first printed mention of bagels... is to be found in the Community Regulations of Kracow, Poland, for the year 1610 which stated that bagels would be given as a gift to any woman in childbirth.
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Acting is a form of deception, and actors can mesmerize themselves almost as easily as an audience.
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Satire is focused bitterness.
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