Quotes from Leo C. Rosten

Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable.

I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, after all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.

The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others.

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. The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others.

Courage is the capacity to comfront what can be imagined....

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.

Satire is focused bitterness.