Leo Rosten Quotes

What's green, hangs on a wall and whistles?

Conservative: One who admires radicals a century after they're dead.

The purpose of life is not to be happy at all. It is to be useful, to be honorable. It is to be compassionate. It is to matter, to have it make some difference that you lived.

The only thing I can say about W. C. Fields … is this: Any man who hates dogs and babies can't be all bad.

Two Martians who had landed in America happened to run into each other. “What’s your name?” asked the first. “4286. And yours?” “3359.” “That’s funny; you don’t look Jewish.

Yiddish became the Jews’ tongue via the Jewish mother, who, not being male, was denied a Hebrew education.

The sages taught the Jews not to rejoice over another’s misfortune. “Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth” (Proverbs 24:17). (I must confess that I have always enjoyed gloating over the comeuppance suffered by the detestable, regardless of race, color, or creed.)

On his first day in cheder, the boy’s mother and father would stand over him as the teacher pointed to the letters of the alef-bet (alphabet). The lad repeated the names of the Hebrew letters: alef … beyt … giml … daled … And for each name, his mother would give him a little honey cake or cookie, shaped in the form of that letter, or would put honey into his mouth, to eat with the cake — to show how sweet learning is.

Two Jewish k’nockers, approaching Honolulu, got into an argument about the correct pronunciation of Hawaii: one was sure it was “Hawaii,” the other positive it was “Havaii.” They made a bet. When they got off the plane, they hurried over to the first native they saw and said, “Aloha! How do you pronounce the name of this island: Hawaii or Havaii?” “Havaii,” said the native. “Thank you.” “You’re velcome,” said the native.

A Yiddish expression, “Er ligt in der erd un bakt bagel,” is readily translated as “He lies in the ground and bakes bagels.” But what does that mean? “He’s not doing so well, poor chap.

Lendler has come down through the decades to enjoy a place of its own in the distinctive argot of Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens. When you rented rooms from a lendler, you became his tenor. Singing had nothing to do with it.

FOLK SAYING: “Some scholars are like donkeys: they merely carry a lot of books.

I have always loved the charming story about the brilliant young student who came to the old, learned rabbi and defiantly exclaimed, “I must tell you the truth! I have become an apikoyres. I no longer believe in God!” “And how long,” asked the elder, “have you been studying Talmud?” “Five years,” the student said. “Only five years,” sighed the rabbi, “and you have the nerve to call yourself an apikoyres?! …” aroysgevorfnY

Goldene medine meant America: land of freedom, justice, opportunity — and protection against pogroms. Rarely did I hear such overtones of gratitude as went into the utterance of this compound noun.

A story in the Talmud relates that after the Israelites had safely crossed the Red Sea,* they sang a song of praise to God, but when the angels sought to join the triumphant paean, God thundered: “You shall not sing while my other children [the Egyptians] are drowning.