A salad is not a meal. It is a style

Manhattan, New York, United States ©Fabien Bazanegue (source)

Manners
Very few people possess true artistic ability. It is therefore both unseemly and unproductive to irritate the situation by making an effort. If you have a burning, restless urge to write or paint, simply eat something sweet and the feeling will pass. Your life story would not make a good book. Do not even try.
All God’s children are not beautiful. Most of God’s children are, in fact, barely presentable. The most common error made in matters of appearance is the belief that one should disdain the superficial and let the true beauty of one’s soul shine through. If there are places on your body where this is a possibility, you are not attractive—you are leaking.
(p. 19*)

Disco Hints: The New Etiquette
There is no question but that after a few moments of dancing you are likely to become quite warm. This should not be taken as a cue to remove your shirt. If one of your fellow dancers should be interested in your progress at the gym, rest assured that he will not be too shy to ask. Should you find the heat unbearable you can just take that bandanna out of your back pocket and blot your forehead. Just be sure you put it back on the right side.
(p. 33*)

 

Children: Pro or Con?
Children make the most desirable opponents in Scrabble as they are both easy to beat and fun to cheat.
(p. 40*)

It is still quite possible to stand in a throng of children without once detecting even the faintest whiff of an exciting, rugged after-shave or cologne.
(p. 40*)

Children have decidedly little fashion sense and if left to their own devices will more often than not be drawn to garments of unfortunate cut. In this respect they do not differ greatly from the majority of their elders, but somehow one blames them more
(p. 41*)

A Manual: Training for Landlords
Lesson Six: Roaches
It is the solemn duty of every landlord to maintain an adequate supply of roaches. The minimum acceptable roach to tenant ratio is four thousand to one. Should this arrangement prompt an expression of displeasure on the part of the tenant, ignore him absolutely. The tenant is a notorious complainer. Just why this is so is not certain, though a number of theories abound. The most plausible of these ascribes the tenant’s chronic irritability to his widely suspected habit of drinking enormous quantities of heat and hot water—a practice well known to result in the tragically premature demise of hallway light bulbs.
(p. 45*)

Success Without College
The Restaurant Critic Mother
The restaurant critic mother is a proud woman. So proud, in fact, that those who know her have pretty much had it up to here with listening to what a picky eater she’s got on her hands. But her pride is understandable, for she has earned it. For years she has asked, “How was lunch, dear?” only to be answered with a terse “O.K.” Over and over again she has drilled her little charge until the happy day when her question elicits this rewarding response: “Mommy, the sandwich was superb. The Wonder Bread softly unobtrusive, the perfect foil for both the richly poignant Superchunky Skippy and the clear, fragrant Welch’s grape. The carrot sticks were exquisitely sweet, yet asserted their integrity in every glorious crunch. The Yoo Hoo was interesting—adolescent but robust—and the Yankee Doodle, a symphony of snowy creme filling and rich, dark cake; the whole of it bathed in a splendor of chocolate-flavored icing that verged on the sinful.”
(p. 49*)

Notes on “Trick”
Other people’s Tricks pose a special problem. Upon coming across a friend thus accompanied you must, out of politeness, treat the Trick amicably. This is invariably a mistake, for shortly thereafter the friend will divest himself of his consort and for the rest of your life the Trick will be coming up to you at parties and saying hello.
(p. 71*)

People love to feel superior to their past.
(p. 72*)

Tricks like you for what they aren’t. You like Tricks for what you haven’t.
(p. 74*)

Science
Legend has it that the atom was split when a bunch of scientists working late decided to order in a pizza. Indeed a terrifying story and one made all the more chilling when one learns that a number of their colleagues smarting from the snub of being excluded from this impromptu meal spitefully repaired to an all-night diner and invented polyester.
(p. 79*)

Why I Love Sleep
I love sleep because it is both pleasant and safe to use. Pleasant because one is in the best possible company and safe because sleep is the consummate protection against the unseemliness that is the invariable consequence of being awake. What you don’t know won’t hurt you. Sleep is death without the responsibility.
(p. 92*)

Food for Thought and Vice Versa
Thin, almost transparent slices of lemon do indeed go a long way in dressing up a meal but they should not be counted as a separate vegetable.
(p. 105*)

A salad is not a meal. It is a style.
(p. 105*)

Japanese food is very pretty and undoubtedly a suitable cuisine in Japan, which is largely populated by people of below average size. Hostesses hell-bent on serving such food to occidentals would be well advised to supplement it with something more substantial and to keep in mind that almost everybody likes french fries.
(p. 105*)

Vegetables are interesting but lack a sense of purpose when unaccompanied by a good cut of meat.
(p. 105*)

People have been cooking and eating for thousands of years, so if you are the very first to have thought of adding fresh lime juice to scalloped potatoes try to understand that there must be a reason for this.
(pp. 106-107*)

 

Not in the: Mood Jewelry
As one whose taste in mental states has always run largely toward the coma, I have very little patience with the current craze for self-awareness. I am already far too well acquainted with how I feel and frankly, given the choice, I would not.
(p. 113*)

 

The Sound of Music: Enough Already
1. Music in Other People’s Clock Radios
There are times when I find myself spending the night in the home of another. Frequently the other is in a more reasonable line of work than I and must arise at a specific hour. Ofttimes the other, unbeknownst to me, manipulates an appliance in such a way that I am awakened by Stevie Wonder. On such occasions I announce that if I wished to be awakened by Stevie Wonder I would sleep with Stevie Wonder. I do not, however, wish to be awakened by Stevie Wonder and that is why God invented alarm clocks. Sometimes the other realizes that I am right. Sometimes the other does not. And that is why God invented many others.
(p. 126*)

Poetry
If you are of the opinion that the contemplation of suicide is sufficient evidence of a poetic nature, do not forget that actions speak louder than words.
(p. 134*)

Or Not CB: That Is the Answer
I originally planned to take issue in the form of an exchange of letters between Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas written in CB slang. I labored diligently but with little success, for CB slang as a means of communication is irretrievably butch. It is, in fact, safe to say that if the population of the United States was relieved entirely of its girls and its male homosexuals, CB slang would be English.
(p. 148*)

CB slang is on the one hand too colorful and on the other hand lacking a counterpart for the words pearl gray.
(p. 149*)

A Few Words on a Few Words
Democracy is an interesting, even laudable, notion and there is no question but that when compared to Communism, which is too dull, or Fascism, which is too exciting, it emerges as the most palatable form of government. This is not to say that it is without its drawbacks—chief among them being its regrettable tendency to encourage people in the belief that all men are created equal. And although the vast majority need only take a quick look around the room to see that this is hardly the case, a great many remain utterly convinced.

The major problem resulting from this conviction is that it causes such people to take personally the inalienable right of freedom of speech. This in itself would be at least tolerable were this group not given to such a broad interpretation of the word freedom or such a slender interpretation of the word speech.
(p. 159*)

*according to my reader

 

 Fran Lebowitz - The Fran Lebowitz Reader (Vintage, 1994)