Leo Rosten Quotes

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 described by fairy tales.

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.

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

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

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

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

If you're going to do something wrong, at least enjoy it.

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

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

You can understand and relate to most people better if you look at them - no matter how old or impressive they may be - as if they are children. For most of us never really grow up or mature all that much - we simply grow taller. 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 described by fairy tales.

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

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

Where was it ever promised us that life on this earth can ever be easy, free from conflict and uncertainty, devoid of anguish and wonder and pain? … The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.

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.

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.

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

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.

Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood.” –Leo Rosten

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.

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.

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.

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 compassionate. It is, above all to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.” —Leo Rosten

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.

SCENE: Classroom, Lower East Side, 1926. Teacher: “Who can tell us where the Romanian border is?” Student: “In the park with my aunt, and my mother doesn’t trust him!

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

Writer Leo Rosten famously quipped: ‘Money can’t buy happiness, but neither can poverty.

Why do the wicked always form groups, whereas the righteous do not? Because the wicked, walking in darkness, need company, but the righteous, who live in the light, do not fear being alone.

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.

Jews are not proselytizers.*Rabbis are required to make three separate efforts to discourage a would-be convert.

In the Catskills, it is claimed that an ingenious gentleman crossbred a Guernsey with a Holstein—to get a Goldstein.

PROVERB: “A tavern can’t corrupt a good man, and a synagogue can’t reform a bad one.

FOLK SAYINGS: “Nine wise men don’t make a minyan, but ten cobblers do.” “Nine saints do not make a minyan, but one ordinary man can by joining them.

A young khokhem told his grandmother that he was going to become a doctor of philosophy. The bubbe smiled proudly: “Wonderful. But what kind of disease is ‘philosophy’?

A Jew, crossing the street, bumped into an anti-Semite. “Swine!” bellowed the paskudnyak. “Goldberg,” said the Jew, bowing.

Chutzpa is that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.

I think of a shmegegge as a cross between a shlimazl and a shlemiel—or even between a nudnik and a nebekh.

FOLK SAYING: “Your health comes first; you can always hang yourself later.

I am informed by veterans of the Lower East Side that decalcomania pictures were called “cockamamies” because no one knew how to spell “decalcomania.

I have it on indisputable authority that in Scarsdale, during a school celebration of Christmas, one of the children sang the carol as “God rest ye, Jerry Mandelbaum.

Why is sholem used for both “hello” and “good-bye”? Israelis say: “Because we have so many problems that half the time we don’t know whether we’re coming or going.

Jewish dropout: a boy who didn’t get his Ph.D. —ANON

Centuries before Sigmund Freud published his Interpretation of Dreams (1900), the Jews had a saying: “In sleep, it is not the man who sins—but his dream.

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.

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

As actor and comedian Lily Tomlin once said, “The road to success is always under construction.” So don’t allow yourself to be detoured from getting to your ONE Thing. Pave your way with the right people and place. BIG IDEAS Start saying “no.” Always remember that when you say yes to something, you’re saying no to everything else. It’s the essence of keeping a commitment. Start turning down other requests outright or saying, “No, for now” to distractions so that nothing detracts you from getting to your top priority. Learning to say no can and will liberate you. It’s how you’ll find the time for your ONE Thing. Accept chaos. Recognize that pursuing your ONE Thing moves other things to the back burner. Loose ends can feel like snares, creating tangles in your path. This kind of chaos is unavoidable. Make peace with it. Learn to deal with it. The success you have accomplishing your ONE Thing will continually prove you made the right decision. Manage your energy. Don’t sacrifice your health by trying to take on too much. Your body is an amazing machine, but it doesn’t come with a warranty, you can’t trade it in, and repairs can be costly. It’s important to manage your energy so you can do what you must do, achieve what you want to achieve, and live the life you want to live. Take ownership of your environment. Make sure that the people around you and your physical surroundings support your goals. The right people in your life and the right physical environment on your daily path will support your efforts to get to your ONE Thing. When both are in alignment with your ONE Thing, they will supply the optimism and physical lift you need to make your ONE Thing happen. Screenwriter Leo Rosten pulled everything together for us when he said, “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 compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.” Live with Purpose, Live by Priority, and Live for Productivity. Follow these three for the same reason you make the three commitments and avoid the four thieves—because you want to leave your mark. You want your life to matter. 18

George S. Kaufman, a prince of wit, once remarked that he liked to write with his collaborator, Moss Hart, because Hart was so lucky. “In my case,” said Kaufman, “it’s gelt by association.

The melamed asked one of his young students, “Yussele, do you say your prayers before each meal?” “No, melamed.” “What? You don’t pray before each meal?!” “I don’t have to. My mother’s a good cook.

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

The braggadocio aspect is important: a successful but modest man is ordinarily not called a k’nocker. A k’nocker is someone who works crossword puzzles—with a pen (especially if someone is watching).

By no means is my friend original in this last use of the “expensive = good” rule to snare those seeking a bargain. Culturist and author Leo Rosten gives the example of the Drubeck brothers, Sid and Harry, who owned a men’s tailor shop in Rosten’s neighborhood while he was growing up in the 1930s. Whenever the salesman, Sid, had a new customer trying on suits in front of the shop’s three-sided mirror, he would admit to a hearing problem, and, as they talked, he would repeatedly request that the man speak more loudly to him. Once the customer had found a suit he liked and had asked for the price, Sid would call to his brother, the head tailor, at the back of the room, “Harry, how much for this suit?” Looking up from his work—and greatly exaggerating the suit’s true price—Harry would call back, “For that beautiful all-wool suit, forty-two dollars.” Pretending not to have heard and cupping his hand to his ear, Sid would ask again. Once more Harry would reply, “Forty-two dollars.” At this point, Sid would turn to the customer and report, “He says twenty-two dollars.” Many a man would hurry to buy the suit and scramble out of the shop with his “expensive = good” bargain before Poor Sid discovered the “mistake.

Jehovah Pronounced (in English) Jee-HO-vah. Not a Yiddish word. It is not a Hebrew word. It is some scribe’s Latin transliteration of YHVH, to which the vowel marks for Adonai were added. The word appeared for the first time in an English text in 1530. God.

An official brought the chief rabbi of a town before the Court of the Inquisition and told him, “We will leave the fate of your people to God. I’m putting two slips of paper in this box. On one is written ‘Guilty.’ On the other is written ‘Innocent.’ Draw.” Now this inquisitor was known to seek the slaughter of all the Jews, and he had written “Guilty” on both pieces of paper. The rabbi put his hand inside the box, withdrew a slip of paper—and swallowed it. “What are you doing?” cried the inquisitor. “How will the court know—” “That’s simple,” said the rabbi. “Examine the slip that’s in the box. If it reads ‘Innocent,’ then the paper I swallowed obviously must have read ‘Guilty.’ But if the paper in the box reads ‘Guilty,’ then the one I swallowed must have read ‘Innocent.

give a noun.” “Door,” said Mr. Kaplan, smiling. It seemed to Mr. Parkhill that “door” had been given only a moment earlier, by Miss Mitnick. “Y-es,” said Mr. Parkhill. “Er—and another noun?” “Another door,” Mr. Kaplan replied promptly. Mr. Parkhill put him down as a doubtful “C.” Everything pointed to the fact that Mr. Kaplan might have to be kept on an extra three months before he was ready for promotion to Composition, Grammar, and Civics, with Miss Higby. One night Mrs. Moskowitz read a sentence, from “English for Beginners,

Tis said that Hitler, disturbed by nightmares, called in a soothsayer. The seer consulted a crystal ball and said, “Ah, mighty Führer, it is foretold that you will die on a Jewish holiday.” “Which one?” said Hitler with a scowl. “Any day you die will be a Jewish holiday.

The great rabbis did not “create” Halakha: what the rabbis did was to codify and clarify the legal teachings, adapting them to changing social conditions. “The Rabbinic Halakha,” writes Judah Goldin, “protected legislation from inflexibility and society from fundamentalism

At a mass meeting in Berlin, Adolf Hitler, in thrall to a most appalling aynredenish, shrieked, “And who is responsible for all our troubles?” Ben Cohen shouted, “The bicycle riders and the Jews!” Hitler looked up, astonished. “Why the bicycle riders?” “Why the Jews?” replied Cohen.

The sense of differentiation is so acute in Yiddish that a word like, say, paskudnyak has no peer in any language I know for the vocal delineation of a nasty character. And Yiddish coins new names with ease for new personality types: a nudnik is a pest; a phudnik is a nudnik with a Ph.D.

For twenty years Mr. Sokoloff had been eating at the same restaurant on Second Avenue. On this night, as on every other, Mr. Sokoloff ordered chicken soup. The waiter set it down and started off. Mr. Sokoloff called, “Waiter!” “Yeah?” “Please taste this soup.” The waiter said, “Hanh? Twenty years you’ve been eating the chicken soup here, no? Have you ever had a bad plate—” “Waiter,” Sokoloff said firmly, “taste the soup.” “Sokoloff, what’s the matter with you?” “Taste the soup!” “All right, all right,” the waiter said, grimacing. “I’ll taste—where’s the spoon?” “Aha!” cried Sokoloff.

He sat there, sighing and moaning and ruminating thusly: “Oh, if only the Holy One, blessed be His name, would give me ten thousand dollars, I promise I would give a thousand to the poor. Halevay! … And if the Holy One doesn’t trust me, He can deduct the thousand in advance and just give me the balance.

Vun ting more I should say, so de cless shouldn´t fill too bed about Jake Popper. It´s awreddy nine yiss since he pest avay!” “And I didn´t go to de funeral!” On this strange note, Mr. Kaplan took his seat. The class hummed, protesting against this anticlimax which left so much to the imagination. “Why you didn´t?” cried Mr. Bloom, with a knowing nod to the Misses Mitnick and Caravello. Mr. Kaplan´s face was a study in sufferance. “Becawss de funeral vas in de meedle of the veek,” he sighed. “An´ I said to minesalf, “Keplen, you in America, so tink like de Americans tink!´ So I tought, an´ I didn´t go. Becawss I tought of dat dip American idea, ´Business before pleasure!

Yiddish, the language which will ever bear witness to the violence and murder inflicted on us, bears the marks of our expulsions from land to land, the language which absorbed the wails of the fathers, the laments of the generations, the poison and bitterness of history, the language whose precious jewels are undried, uncongealed Jewish tears.

Which is more important: money or wisdom? “Wisdom,” says the philosopher. “Ha!” scoffs the cynic. “If wisdom is more important than money, why is it that the wise wait on the rich, and not the rich on the wise?” “Because,” says the scholar, “the wise, being wise, understand the value of money; but the rich, being only rich, do not know the value of wisdom.

I wouldn’t say ‘Hello’ to a paskudnyak like that!” “Did you ever hear of such a paskudnyak?” “That whole family is a collection of paskudnyaks.” This word is one of the most greasily graphic, I think, in Yiddish. It offers the connoisseur three nice, long syllables, starting with a sibilant of reprehension and ending with a nasality of scorn. It adds cadence to contempt.

A woman, feeling sorry for a beggar who had come to her door, invited him in and offered him food. On the table was a pile of dark bread—and a few slices of challah. The shnorrer (beggar) promptly fell upon the challah. “There’s black bread, too,” the woman hinted. “I prefer challah.” “But challah is much more expensive!” “Lady,” said the beggar, “it’s worth it.” That, I think, is chutzpa.

Two cheder students were discussing how hard and tiring their studies had become, and impulsively one blurted: “Let’s run away!” “Run away? … Our fathers would catch up with us and give us a sound thrashing.” “So we’ll hit them back!” “What? Hit your father?! You must be mad. Have you forgotten the Commandment—always to honor your father and mother?” “Mmh…. So you hit my father and I’ll hit yours.

Mr. Kaplan smiled back and answered promptly, “Vell, I´ll tell you about Prazidents United States. Fife Prazidents United States is Abram Lincohen, he vas freeink de neegers; Hodding, Coolitch, Judge Vashington, an´ Banjamin Franklin.” Futher encouragement revealed that Mr. Kaplan´s literary Valhalla the “most famous tree American wriders” were Jeck Laundon, Valt Viterman, and the author of “Hawk l. Barry-Feen,” one Mock- tvain. Mr. Kaplan took pains to point out that he did not mention Relfvaldo Amerson because “He is a poyet, an´I´m talkink about wriders.

Boychik or boychikel is used with affection, even admiration, the way some people say, “That’s my boy,” or the way an earlier generation said, “Oh, you kid!” “Hello, boychik” or “How are you, boychikel?” may be uttered to males long past their boyhood; generally, when used to or about an aging man, boychik carries a tinge of sarcasm—but it can be used fondly: Affectionate: “That Sam”—sigh—”he has the spirit of a boychik.” Sarcastic: “At his age to go after young girls … ! Some boychik!” 2. Critically: A sharp operator; one who cuts corners. “He’s some boychik” can mean anything from “He’s a tricky fellow” to “Watch

At the end of a pier in Tel Aviv, a man was about to jump into the sea when a policeman came running up to him. “No, no!” he cried. “How can a man like you, in the prime of life, think of jumping into that water?” “Because I can’t stand it anymore! I don’t want to live!” “But listen, mister, please. If you jump in the water, I’ll have to jump in after you, to save you. Right? Well, it so happens I can’t swim. Do you know what that means? I have a wife and four children, and in the line of duty I would drown! Would you want to have such a terrible thing on your conscience? No, I’m sure. So be a good Jew, and do a real mitzva. Go home. And in the privacy and comfort of your own home, hang yourself.

The famous Dubner maggid, a gaon, was asked by an admiring student: “How is it that you always have the perfect parable for the topic under discussion?” The gaon smiled. “I’ll answer with a parable.” And he told the following story: A lieutenant of the Tsar’s cavalry, riding through a small shtetl, drew his horse up in astonishment, for on the side of a barn he saw a hundred chalked circles—and in the center of each was a bullet hole! The lieutenant excitedly stopped the first passerby, crying, “Who is the astonishing marksman in this place? Look at all those bull’s-eyes!” The passerby sighed. “That’s Shepsel, the shoemaker’s son, who is a little peculiar.” “I don’t care what he is,” said the lieutenant. “Any man who can shoot that well—” “Ah,” the pedestrian said, “you don’t understand. You see, first Shepsel shoots—then he draws the circle.” The gaon smiled. “That’s the way it is with me. I don’t search for a parable to fit the subject. I introduce the subject for which I have a perfect parable.

Tis said that Hitler, disturbed by nightmares, called in a soothsayer. The seer consulted a crystal ball and said, “Ah, mighty Führer, it is foretold that you will die on a Jewish holiday.” “Which one?” said Hitler with a scowl. “Any day you die will be a Jewish holiday.” Simchas

To imitate a lunkhead without malice or derision is quite a feat — and Red Skelton brings it off everytime. - Humorist Leo Rosten

It has been said that the basic principle of Jewish ethics lies in the idea of mandatory mitzvas. Said Eleazar ben Simeon: “The world is judged by the majority of its people [and] an individual by the majority of his deeds. Happy is he who performs a good deed: that may tip the scale for him and the world [italics mine].” Israel Zangwill called the mitzvas the Jews’ “sacred sociology.

The Talmud expresses this lovely thought: “God found the Jews as one finds grapes in the desert.

Since God is the King of kings, all men, whether princes or paupers, are His servants. Hence, the rabbis taught that no man should serve another,* for all are servants of God alone. A sign in a café in Jerusalem reads: “Self-service. ‘For you are servants unto Me,’ saith the Lord.

Mr. Samuel Goldwyn once remarked, during a dinner table argument about psychiatry: “Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.

Jews participated in the ownership of human beings right up through to the nineteenth century, and biblical texts were quoted by some Civil War–era American rabbis to justify the South’s “peculiar institution.

Two Jewish k’nockers, approaching Honolulu, got into an argument about the correct pronunciation of Hawaii: one was sure it was “Hawaii,” the other positive it was “Havaii.” They made a bet. When they got off the plane, they hurried over to the first native they saw and said, “Aloha! How do you pronounce the name of this island: Hawaii or Havaii?” “Havaii,” said the native. “Thank you.” “You’re velcome,” said the native.

There is no truth in the observation that after Robert Briscoe, a Jew, was elected Lord Mayor of Dublin, the Irish began to see leprecohens.

Long, long before Freud, the Jews had this saying: “When a son gets married, he divorces his mother.

The play The Kibitzer, by Jo Swerling (1929), made both the title and its star, Edward G. Robinson, famous overnight. The sign on the door read: DR. JOSEPH KIPNIS PSYCHIATRIST DR. ELI LOWITZ PROCTOLOGIST Under this, a kibitzer had written: “Specialists in Odds and Ends.

Lendler has come down through the decades to enjoy a place of its own in the distinctive argot of Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens. When you rented rooms from a lendler, you became his tenor. Singing had nothing to do with it.

All of Judaism’s philosophy, ethics, ethos, learning, education, and hierarchy of values are saturated with a sense of, and heightened sensitivity to, rakhmones. God is often called the God of Mercy and Compassion: Adonai El Rakhum Ve-Khanum. The writings of the prophets are permeated with appeals for rakhmones, a divine attribute. (So, too, are the words of Jesus and the books of the New Testament.)

No one is sure how and when the Star of David first came into use as a symbol of Jewry. The first Zionist Congress adopted it in 1897.

The rabbi gets the fees, but it’s the moyl who gets all the tips.

The sages taught the Jews not to rejoice over another’s misfortune. “Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth” (Proverbs 24:17). (I must confess that I have always enjoyed gloating over the comeuppance suffered by the detestable, regardless of race, color, or creed.)

The Torah, like other ancient law codes, assigns the death penalty to many proscribed behaviors besides murder—including adultery, rape of a betrothed woman, giving insult or injury to one’s parents, witchcraft, male homosexuality, and public profanation of the Sabbath. By the second century C.E., however, the Talmudic rabbis, whose debates and rulings constitute the main body of Halakha, had virtually nullified the death penalty. The Mishnah (the codification of law that forms the core text of the Talmud) states, “A Sanhedrin [governing council] that puts a man to death once in seven years is called destructive. Rabbi Eliezer ben Azariah says: even once in seventy years. Rabbi Akiba and Rabbi Tarfon say: had we been in the Sanhedrin none would ever have been put to death” (Makkot 7A). Even in murder cases, the Torah’s requirement of two eyewitnesses for a sentence of death was interpreted by the Talmudic rabbis to make capital punishment highly unlikely: the murderer’s own confession could not be accepted as evidence, and the two eyewitnesses were required also to have warned the criminal beforehand that he would be executed! Justice tempered by mercy thus became the Jewish ideal.

In the Middle Ages, church and secular powers often forbade Jews to trim their beards in any way. Why? To be certain that a Jew could be identified.

Dr. M. J. Kornblum and Dr. Albert Steinhoff, both obstetricians, share an office. On the door, under their office hours, some lets printed: 24-HOUR SERVICE … WE DELIVER

A story in the Talmud relates that after the Israelites had safely crossed the Red Sea,* they sang a song of praise to God, but when the angels sought to join the triumphant paean, God thundered: “You shall not sing while my other children [the Egyptians] are drowning.

Mr. Abraham, driven to desperation by the endless delays of the tailor who was making him a pair of trousers, finally cried, “Tailor, in the name of Heaven, it has already taken you six weeks!” “So?” “So, you ask? Six weeks for a pair of pants? Reboyne Shel Oylem! It took God only six days to create the universe!” “Nu,” shrugged the tailor, “look at it….

Sholem Aleichem defined a shadkhn as “a dealer in livestock.

The shadkhn was impressing the young woman with the boundless virtues of a female and ended: “And to look at, she’s a regular picture!” The young man could not wait for his blind date. But when he accosted the shadkhn the next day, his voice was frosty: “Her eyes are crossed, her nose is crooked, and when she smiles one side of her mouth goes down—” “Just a minute,” interrupted the shadkhn. “Is it my fault you don’t like Picasso?

There is a saying, “A patsh fargeyt, a vort bashteyt”—”A slap passes, but a word [that is, an insult] remains.

when the overwhelming majority of Europeans were illiterate, it would have been hard to find a Jewish male over the age of five who could not read. Virtually every Jewish boy had to learn Hebrew.

Any reader who feels superior to such quaint English might remember that when the overwhelming majority of humankind was illiterate, it was hard to find a Jewish lad over six who could not read and write (Hebrew). Most adult male Jews could handle at least three languages: they used Hebrew in the synagogues and houses of study (see Besmedresh), Yiddish in the home, and—to Gentiles—the language of the land in which they lived. My father, a workingman denied the equivalent of a high school education in Poland, handled Yiddish, English, Hebrew, and Polish. Jews were linguists of necessity.

Two shlemiels were drinking tea. In time, one looked up and announced portentously: “Life! What is it? Life—is like a fountain!” The other pondered for a few minutes, then asked, “Why?” The first thought and thought, then sighed. “So okay: life isn’t like a fountain.