Fran Lebowitz Quotes

I walked around the block twice, passed 200 people and failed to see a human being.

I have always loved to sit in ferry and railroad stations and watch the people, to walk on crowded streets, just walk along among the people, and see their faces, to be among people on street cars and trains and boats.

I just want to go through Central Park and watch folks passing by. Spend the whole day watching people. I miss that.

I would solve a lot of literary problems just thinking about a character in the subway, where you can't do anything anyway.

I love watching people, and that's what I do; just go for a walk at about 4 o'clock, and go down a busy street, where you see people coming out of school and you get a glimpse of their lives, what they're talking about.

The first thing that I do when I come out every night is to look at the faces in front of me, very individually.

I watch people constantly.

People drive everywhere in L.A., so you get very little human interaction... but N.Y. and Chicago are like London... L.A. lacks the social interaction.

The only pleasurable part of taking the subway, as everyone will agree, is concocting elaborate fantasies about what it would be like to be married to the most interesting strangers you see there.

Being a pedestrian again is very exciting because in L.A. you live in your car, and you're on a freeway all the time.

Taking trains and trams in Berlin, I noticed people reading. Books, I mean - not pocket-size devices that bleep as if censorious, on which even Shakespeare scans like a spreadsheet.

I thought talking to human beings was just something that could make things complicated and unpleasant. So I didn't talk much. I just watched people.

I spend a lot of time wandering around the countryside just looking at people, seeing how everything fits together.

I think one of the things about railways, if you get on a train you do find - as you come into Paddington, or wherever - you look into people's windows in a way that you just can't do in a car or any other way.

In Paris, the people go in the Metro, they move, they go to their offices, 8 a.m. in the morning - it's like remote control.

People are the nature of the city, and you can feel it in the pavement.

I have an obsession with just watching people and what they're into.

I can watch anybody all day long if they're really doing what they're doing. I have a fascination with human behavior, watching people talk, when they pick at their face or how they hold their hand or if they're listening to you, if they're not listening to you.

Everybody sounds stoned, because they're e-mailing people the whole time they're talking to you.

We have the alternative. "Do I want to be on the subway looking at these people, or do I want to be in my phone looking at my people?"

I like to see how people interact with each other and I draw from that. I'm inspired by that.

Occasionally I encounter people getting into their cars who will say, "Oh, you haven't been walking lately" - like I'm a symbol of the ancient art of walking!

The city's full of people who you just see around.

As an actor, I have to watch people and observe their behaviors - this is how I create characters.