Joke of the Day (Oscar Levant, on His Morning Routine)

“First I brush my teeth and then I sharpen my tongue.”—American pianist, actor, author, and savage wit Oscar Levant (1905-1972), asked about his morning routine, quoted by Erskine Johnson, “Erskine Johnson’s Hollywood Today,” Santa Cruz Evening News, Sept. 26, 1940

Quote of the Day (Fran Lebowitz, on Her Urban Instincts)

“To put it bluntly, I am not the type of person who wants to go back to the land; I am the person of person who wants to go back to the hotel.”—American humorist and actor Fran Lebowitz, Social Studies (1981)

With Nora Ephron gone, the closest thing our time may have to the wit Dorothy Parker might be Fran Lebowitz—and, like Parker, though Lebowitz made her reputation in New York, she was born across the Hudson River—in Morristown, NJ, 75 years ago today, to be exact.

Unlike Parker or Ephron, Ms. Lebowitz has not gone to Hollywood as a screenwriter. In fact, she’s not written anything remotely substantial since the 1990s.

Still, she would dispute any notion that the phrase “writer's block” applies to her, though not for the reason you may think: 

“I would not call it a writer's block,” she has said. “A writer's block to me is a temporary thing. A month, you know, six weeks. This was more a writer's blockade.”

Until she breaks this "blockade," fans will have to make do with the two essay collections Lebowitz published 40 to 50 years ago, Metropolitan Life and Social Studies; view Martin Scorsese’s documentary about her from four years ago, Pretend It’s A City; and watch out for occasional interviews over the years in which she engages in hilarious venting and kvetching with all manner of opinions.

Movie Quote of the Day (‘An American in Paris,’ on Looking Beyond a Man’s Exterior)

“It's not a pretty face, I grant you, but underneath its flabby exterior is an enormous lack of character.”— Adam Cook [played by pianist, actor, author, and wit Oscar Levant], in An American in Paris (1951), screenplay by Alan Jay Lerner, directed by Vincente Minnelli

Quote of the Day (Jane Austen, on a Great Benefit of Chaperoning Youths)

“By the bye, as I must leave off being young, I find many douceurs in being a sort of chaperon, for I am put on the sofa near the fire and can drink as much wine as I like.”—English novelist Jane Austen (1775-1817), letter of Nov. 6, 1813, in Letters of Jane Austen, edited by Edward Hugessen Knatchbull-Hugessen (Brabourne Edition)

Quote of the Day (Sir Francis Bacon, on ‘The Monuments of Wit and Learning’)

“The monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of power, or of the hands. For have not the verses of Homer continued twenty-five hundred years or more, without the loss of a syllable or letter; during which time infinite palaces, temples, castles, cities have been decayed and demolished?”—English philosopher, scientist, essayist, and statesman Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Essex’s Device (1595)

Quote of the Day (Oscar Wilde, on Conversational Tendencies)

"I like to do all of the talking myself. It saves time and prevents arguments."— Anglo-Irish playwright, novelist and short-story writer Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), "The Remarkable Rocket," in The Happy Prince and Other Tales (1888)

Quote of the Day (Larry Wilmore, on Wit)

“Someone slipping on a banana peel is funny, but there’s nothing witty about it. Wit involves using language in a clever way to reveal some greater truth. We appreciate both the cleverness and the light that it shines for us.”—Larry Wilmore, quoted in “Soapbox: Jane Krakowski, Larry Wilmore and More on Wit,” WSJ. Magazine, Mar. 21, 2016

Sorry about the cancellation of your Nightly Show, Larry. With luck, you’ll be smiling and displaying your wit again soon in another forum.

Quote of the Day (Mark Van Doren, on Wit)

“Wit is the only wall

Between us and the dark.” —Poet and Columbia University professor of English Mark Van Doren, “Wit,” in A Winter Diary and Other Poems (1935)

Quote of the Day (Ralph Waldo Emerson, on Wit)

"Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit." —Ralph Waldo Emerson, Letters and Social Aims: The Comic (1876)

Quote of the Day (Elizabeth I, on Anger)

“Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.”—Queen Elizabeth I quoted in Sir Francis Bacon, Essays and Apothegms of Francis Lord Bacon, edited by John Buchan (1894)

(The image accompanying this post is the Pelican Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, by Nicolas Hilliard, ca. 1575)