Oscar Levant Quotes

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.

I was once thrown out of a mental hospital for depressing the other patients.

Every time I look at you I get a fierce desire to be lonesome.

The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt, too.

What the world needs is more geniuses with humility, there are so few of us left.

Happiness isn't something you experience, it's something you remember.

A pun is the lowest form of humor—when you don't think of it first.

It's not what you are, it's what you don't become that hurts.

Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm schizophrenic, and so am I.

Underneath this flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

Once I make up my mind, I'm full of indecision.

So little time and so little to do.

I'm controversial. My friends either dislike me or hate me

I'm going to memorize your name and throw my head away.

In some situations I was difficult, in odd moments impossible, in rare moments loathsome, but at my best unapproachably great.

First I brush my teeth and then I sharpen my tongue.

Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.

You can't possibly hear the last movement of Beethoven's Seventh and go slow. (Oscar trying to talk his way out of a speeding ticket)

There are two sides to every question: my side and the wrong side.

It'd be nice to please everyone but I thought it would be more interesting to have a point of view.

Strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you'll find the real tinsel underneath.

It's not a pretty face, I grant you. But underneath its flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.

I envy people who drink — at least they know what to blame everything on.

I’ve stepped on too many toes on the way down.

I've changed, I'm nice to people and I'm not so self-centered. What I'm trying to do now is think of the other person. The only trouble is, I've found that the other person thinks only of himself.

On Ira Gershwin: I remember when he was given the manuscript of a novel written by a woman friend who had hopes of having it published. To his astonishment it turned out to be the dirtiest, most pornographic book he had ever read. When the lady mentioned that she intended to use a nom de plume, Ira suggested she call herself Henrietta Miller.

Ballet is the faeries' baseball

When I can't sleep, I read a book by Steve Allen.

A far more serious loss that year was Oscar Levant, who left as Maurice Zolotow reported, “when a series of arguments with Golenpaul culminated in a fistfight.

It's not who you are, it's what you don't become that hurts the most.

I had always resented sleep as an intrusion on my nocturnal self-pity

Fame in this country is a religion that demands human sacrifice, a religion to which I do not wish to belong. You start to take yourself so seriously—I saw it happening to me, after I had written my first book at the age of 23. I’d give lectures or seminars, people would tell me how amazingly great I was, and sooner or later, you believe them. You end up exactly with what Oscar Levant said to George Gershwin: “Tell me, George, if you had it to do all over again, would you still fall in love with yourself?” After

Oscar Levant: “What the world needs is more geniuses with humility. There are so few of us left.

I sit on hard chairs — soft ones spread the hips. Unlike Oscar Levant, who said he never stood when he could sit and never sat when he could lie down, I stand and walk as much as I can. I don’t think any of us walk enough, especially those of us who have desk work to do. When the work is done, the day is gone, and we take the shortest (sitting-down) route home. A walk before bedtime is the best cure for insomnia as well as a way of getting a little more exercise.

There were a number of ways in which the homosexual dimension of these stories could be disguised or seemingly eliminated. For example, the obstacle to the heterosexual romance might be presented not as the love between the two men but as a shared attitude toward women, whether as contempt (often disguised as womanizing), distrust, or some other aversive reaction. In musicals, where double readings are nearly always possible, these kinds of “disguises” will seem either fully effective (from resolutely “straight” perspectives) or sure signs of a hidden subtext (for those inclined and equipped to read them).28 In Singin’ in the Rain, the male friendship between Don Lockwood and Cosmo Brown may well have been patterned on An American in Paris (although potential models are legion), with Donald O’Connor’s dancing adding a spirited physical dimension to the cynical, wisecracking, piano-playing sidekick of Oscar Levant in the earlier film. The homoerotic overtones are somewhat more overt in the earlier film, especially given Levant’s narcissism and insinuating delivery, which always seems to hint at unspoken meanings.