Leo Rosten

Who was Leo Rosten?

Leo Calvin Rosten was born in Łódź, 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.

Famous Quotes:

• Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.
• Humor is, I think, the sublets 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
• If you are going to do something wrong, at least enjoy it.
• Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed.
• Courage is the capacity to confirm what can be imagined.
• I never cease being dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe.
• 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.
• Satire is focused bitterness.
• Extremists think communication means agreeing with them.
• 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.