Leo Calvin Rosten (1908–97) was born in lódz, Russian Empire and died in New York City. He was a teacher and academic, but is best known as a humorist in the fields of scriptwriting, storywriting, journalism and Yiddish lexicography.
Source: Wikipedia (via CC-BY-SA license) • READ: Works by Leo Rosten
If you are going to do something wrong, at least enjoy it.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Enjoyment
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
The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can’t help it.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Writing, Authors & Writing, Writers
We see things as we are, not as they are.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Appearance
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: Communication, Writing, Writers, Authors & Writing
Happiness, to me, lies in stretching, to the farthest boundaries of which we are capable, the resources of the mind and heart.
—Leo Rosten
I never cease being dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Belief
Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Humor
Satire is focused bitterness.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Cynicism
Anyone who is happy all the time is nuts.
—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 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: Motivational, Aspirations, Compassion, Helping, Goals
Courage is capacity to confront what cannot be imagined.
—Leo Rosten
Truth is stranger than fiction; fiction has to make sense.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Truth
Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Courage, Bravery
I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.
—Leo Rosten
First-rate men hire first-rate men;
second-rate men hire third-rate men.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Teamwork
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
Extremists think “communication” means agreeing with them.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Communication
Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable.
—Leo Rosten
Topics: Happiness
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: Writers, Authors & Writing, Writing
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 Russian-born American Art Historian
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