LEO ROSTEN

Words must surely be counted among the most powerful drugs man ever invented.

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

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

Truth is stranger than fiction; fiction has to make sense.

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.

Satire is focused bitterness.

Why did God give me two ears and one mouth? So that I will hear more and talk less.

An angel is a spiritual creature created by God without a body for the service of Christendom and the church.

We see things as we are, not as they are.

Some things are so unexpected that no one is prepared for them.

I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.

If you are going to do something wrong at least enjoy it.

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

First-rate people hire first-rate people; second-rate people hire third-rate people.

Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.

Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined.

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.

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.

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

I never cease being dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe.

Extremists think "communication" means agreeing with them.

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.

You understand people better if you look at them-no matter how old or impressive or important they may be-as if they were children. For most men never mature; they simply grow taller.

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

Money can't buy happiness, but neither can poverty.