Leo Calvin Rosten (1908–97,) pseudonym Leonard Q. Ross, was a Polish-American novelist, screenwriter, journalist, and Yiddish lexicographer. A social scientist, he is best known for his popular books on Yiddish and his comic novels.
Born in Łódż, Russian Empire, now-Poland, Rosten immigrated to Chicago as a small boy. He studied political science, economics, and psychology at the University of Chicago, graduated in 1930, and received his political science PhD in 1937. He worked as a screenwriter and storywriter, wrote critical essays for magazines such as Harper’s, and performed in various wartime government-information assignments.
Rosten wrote humorous pieces for The New Yorker. He is best known for creating the character Hyman Kaplan, based on a student he had met while teaching English to immigrant adults in night school. The series of humorous stories were collected in the best-seller The Education of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N (1937.) Kaplan reappeared for two sequels, The Return of H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N (1959) and O K*A*P*L*A*N! My K*A*P*L*A*N! (1976.)
Rosten worked as a staff writer for Look magazine 1949–71 and lectured at Columbia University. His masterpiece was The Joys of Yiddish (1968,) an unofficial lexicon of Yiddish words, phrases, and rhetorical devices, presented with sayings, quotes, and jokes. Expanded as The Joys of Yinglish (1989,) these works are still acclaimed for their high spirits and comic mastery of Yiddish-inflected English.
Rosten’s other works include The Washington Correspondents (1937; a study of the Capitol press corps,) Hollywood: The Movie Colony, the Movie Makers (1941; a sociological examination of the film industry,) and the mystery novels Silky (1979) and King Silky (1980.) Carnival of Wit (1994) is a collection of humorous tidbits.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Leo Rosten
Humor is, I think, the subtlest and chanciest of literary forms. It is surely not accidental that there are a thousand novelists, essayists, poets or journalists for each humorist. It is a long, long time between James Thurbers.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Humor
I never cease being dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Belief
I sometimes think there is a dimension beyond the four of experience and Einstein: insight, that fifth dimension which promises to liberate us from bondage to the long, imperfect past
—Leo Rosten
Satire is focused bitterness.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Cynicism
Extremists think “communication” means agreeing with them.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Communication
Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Writing, Authors & Writing, Writers
Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Happiness
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
Topics: Goals, Aspirations, Compassion, Motivational, Helping
The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can’t help it.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Writers, Authors & Writing, Writing
First-rate men hire first-rate men;
second-rate men hire third-rate men.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Teamwork
Truth is stranger than fiction; fiction has to make sense.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Truth
If you are going to do something wrong, at least enjoy it.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Enjoyment
We see things as we are, not as they are.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Appearance
Anyone who is happy all the time is nuts.
—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. 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.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Authors & Writing, Writers, Writing, Communication
In the dark colony of night, when I consider man’s magnificent capacity for malice, madness, folly, envy, rage, and destructiveness, and I wonder whether we shall not end up as breakfast for newts and polyps, I seem to hear the muffled cries of all the words in all the books with covers closed.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Books, Reading
I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.
—Leo Rosten
Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Humor
Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Bravery, Courage
Courage is capacity to confront what cannot be imagined.
—Leo Rosten
Happiness, to me, lies in stretching, to the farthest boundaries of which we are capable, the resources of the mind and heart.
—Leo Rosten
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Isaac Asimov American Novelist, Critic, Popular Scientist
Vladimir Nabokov Russian-born American Novelist
Sam Levenson American Humorist
Mark Twain American Humorist
Bernard Berenson American Art Critic
Ayn Rand Russian-born American Novelist
S. J. Perelman American Humorist
Igor Stravinsky Russian-born American Composer
Vladimir Horowitz Russian-born American Pianist
Thomas Masson American Journalist