Tag Archives: Fran Lebowitz

Work First

“At Toni’s memorial service, Angela Davis was there, and we were talking about how Toni never thought anyone was guilty of a crime. Do you remember the Menendez brothers’ trial? Toni, who loved detective stories and trials and stuff like that, told me that the Menendez brothers were innocent. One of them had gone to Princeton for, like, five minutes, during which time Toni had met him. And Toni was a much nicer person than me. My meeting someone does not necessarily make me like them, but to Toni it does. The Menendez trial was one of the first televised trials, and Toni and I watched every single day on the telephone together. And the trial started at noon, because it was in L.A. I was supposed to be writing, of course, and I thought, I’m spending the whole day on the phone watching television, but it must be O.K., because so is Toni. And then I found out that Toni got up at five in the morning, and by twelve she had already done a full day’s work.”

Fran Lebowitz

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An Entire Weekend

“I don’t read the paper every day. I read the [New York] Times only on Saturday and Sunday, and it takes me the entire weekend to read it. I don’t know how people read it every day, and I’m not a slow reader.”

Fran Lebowitz

How Fran Lebowitz Cares for Her Clothes

“I take very good care of my clothes. When I get home, I instantly hang up my jacket. If it’s hot outside, I’ll hang it on the shower rod so that it can air out a bit before I put it away. That’s the first thing I do. Then I’ll hang up my shirt if I’m going to wear it again that night, and I change into another shirt that I just wear around the house. It’s from high school and has holes in it. I love it because it’s mine and because nobody sees me in it, ever. I put my cufflinks in their little box. I shoeshine once a week. My jeans go in the washing machine, my shirts go out (they’re starched), and my clothes that need to be dry-cleaned go to the most expensive dry-cleaner. I dry-clean as infrequently as possible—not only because it’s psychotically expensive, but also because who knows what it does to the clothes? Dry…clean. These words don’t go together. Wet clean—that is how you clean. I can’t even imagine the things they do at the drycleaner. I don’t want to know.”

Fran Lebowitz