Quotes from Leo Rosten

Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost; that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.

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.

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.

A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood.

Everyone, in some small sacred sanctuary of the self, is nuts. -Leo Rosten

Hope is ambiguous, but fear is precious.

The only reason for being a professional writer is that you just can't help it.

It was at this point, visualizing too vividly another Mr. Kaplan in the class, that anxious little lines had crept around Mr. Parkhill´s eyes.

Everyone, in some small secret sanctuary of the self, is nuts.

Writing after the Holocaust had destroyed a third of the world's Jews, Yiddish poet Kadia Molodowsky (1894–1975) addressed the "Chosen People" doctrine most poignantly: "O God of Mercy," she wrote, "For the time being / Choose another people.

Waiter: "Tea or coffee, gentlemen?" First customer: "I'll have tea." Second customer: "Me too—and be sure the glass is clean!" (WAITER EXITS, RETURNS) Waiter: "Two teas. Which one asked for the clean glass?

I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be "happy." I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.

If God lived on earth," goes a sardonic Yiddish saying, "people would knock out all His windows.

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.

Satire is focused bitterness.

A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead.

Any man who hates dogs and babies can't be all bad.

Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined.

The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it.

A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood.

Truth is stranger than fiction fiction has to make sense.

The purpose of life is not to be happy—but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.

The love of money is the source of an enormous amount of good; the fact that the good is a by-product of the selfish pursuit of riches has nothing to do with its indisputable value.

Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost; that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.