Quotes by Leo Rosten

“The purpose of life is not to be happybut to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.”

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

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

“Anybody who hates dogs and babies can't be all bad.”

“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 under...”

“People say: idle curiosity. The one thing that curiosity cannot be is idle.”

“Extremists think 'communication' means agreeing with them.”

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

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

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

“Truth is stranger than fiction fiction has to make sense. ”

“Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined.”

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

“O, to be sure, we laugh less and play less and wear uncomfortable disguises like adults, but beneath the costume is the child we always are, whose needs are simple, whose daily life is still best d...”

“I have admired W.C. Fields since the day he advanced upon Baby LeRoy with an ice pick. 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.”

“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.”

“Truth is stranger than fiction fiction has to make sense.”

“The only thing I can say about W. C. Fields … is this: Any man who hates dogs and babies can't be all bad.”