Ira Levin Quotes & Sayings

You're not going to get any true confessions out of me," she said. "I'm a Leo, and our thing is changing the subject. — Ira Levin

A false-hearted lover is worse than a thief.
For a thief will just rob you and take what you have,
But a false-hearted lover will lead you to the grave.
And the grave will decay you and turn you to dust;
Not one boy in a hundred a poor girl can trust. — Ira Levin

Before that I wanted to be a magazine illustrator - I probably would have painted Gothic scenes. — Ira Levin

there are now only two people on earth who know who he is." He swung a finger back and forth between them. "Us." He squeezed her hands, held her eyes with his. "That's why it's such - joy for me to be with you again. Not just because you're my mother. Because you know who I am, because I don't have to hide the truth from you! And don't you feel something like that toward me? How — Ira Levin

Like so many unhappinesses, this one had begun with silence in the place of honest open talk. — Ira Levin

What's the going price for a stay-in-the-kitchen wife with big boobs and no demands? — Ira Levin

They gave Mrs. Cortez a check for five hundred and eighty-three dollars - a month's rent in advance and a month's rent as security - — Ira Levin

You are only partly alive. — Ira Levin

Being happy or unhappy - is that really the most important thing? Knowing the truth would be a different kind of happiness - a more satisfying kind, I think, even if it turned out to be a sad kind. — Ira Levin

I'd like to have a spice garden some day," Rosemary said. "Out of the city, of course. If Guy ever gets a movie offer we're going to grab it and go live in Los Angeles. I'm a country girl at heart. — Ira Levin

Could anyone know when an actor was true and not acting? — Ira Levin

Someday, he thought, I would like to meet a monster who looked like a monster. — Ira Levin

I finally did work out a very good relationship with my father, but it was rough growing up. We had a lot of conflict, and I think it surfaced in many of my works. — Ira Levin

Did you lose the game? Losing's the same as winning; you know that, don't you?" The — Ira Levin

I say in my talks it takes two things to make it happen again, a new Hitler and social conditions like in the thirties. But that's not true. It takes three things: the Hitler, the conditions, and the people to follow the Hitler.

And don't you think he'd find them?

No, not enough of them. I really think people are better and smarter now, not so much thinking their leaders are God. The television makes a big difference. — Ira Levin

Yakov, if one becomes Hitler, just one - my God, you know what we've got!'
'No,' Liebermann said. 'No, I've been thinking about this for weeks. I say in my talks it takes two things to make it happen again, a new Hitler and social conditions like in the thirties. But that's not true. It takes three things: the Hitler, the conditions ... and the people to follow the Hitler.'
'And don't you think he'd find them?'
'No, not enough of them. I really think people are better and smarter now, not so much thinking their leaders are God. The television makes a big difference. And history, knowing ... Some he'd find, yes; but no more, I think- I hope- than the pretend Hitlers we have now ... — Ira Levin

Sex, yes; sexism, no. — Ira Levin

The egocentricity which motivated it was not that of the spoiled, but of the too little spoiled; the lonely. Had she been an artist she would have painted a self-portrait; instead she decorated two rooms, charging them with objects which some visitor, some day, would recognize and understand. And through that understanding he would divine all the capacities and longings she had found in herself and was unable to communicate. — Ira Levin

And you'll put a deposit on the house tomorrow? — Ira Levin

Philosophers have warned us: if we forget the past, we are doomed to repeat it. — Ira Levin

No, thanks, we're not keen on cat pix. — Ira Levin

They never stop, these Stepford wives. They something something all their lives. Work like robots. Yes, that would fit. They work like robots all their lives. — Ira Levin

Bread now, or cake later — Ira Levin

Today the combat takes a different shape; instead of wishing to put man in a prison, woman endeavors to escape from one; she no longer seeks to drag him into the realms of immanence but to emerge, herself, into the light of transcendence. Now the attitude of the males creates a new conflict: it is with a bad grace that the man lets her go. — Ira Levin

They were confident and cunning. They weren't mucking around looking for nuclear weapon secret sloppy seconds in America. They could care less about America. They were busy with the whole world domination thing. — Ira Levin

I didn't send back any of the royalty checks. — Ira Levin

That green stuff outside is grass, and the yellow stuff coming down on it is sunshine. — Ira Levin

Better to live in doubt than to die in certainty. — Ira Levin

One great difference between good writing, that readers overlook, and bad writing, that they fail to notice, has to do with the number of rewrites and revisions usually required by the former. It isn't at all easy to write clear, declarative prose - transparency evolves from ruthless cutting and trimming and is hard work - while lumpy, tangle-footed writing flows from the pen as if inspired by the Muse. — Ira Levin

Anyone who needs more than one suitcase is a tourist, not a traveler — Ira Levin

Rosemary and Guy Woodhouse had signed a lease on a five-room apartment in a geometric white house on First Avenue when they received word, from a woman named Mrs. Cortez, that a four-room apartment in the Bramford had become available. — Ira Levin

What we are probably given is a mixture of truth and untruth. It's anybody's guess as to which part is which and how much there is of each. — Ira Levin

That's what she was, Joanna felt suddenly. That's what they all were, all the Stepford wives: actresses in commercials, pleased with detergents and floor wax, with cleansers, shampoos, and deodorants. Pretty actresses, big in the bosom but small in the talent, playing housewives unconvincingly, too nicey-nice to be real. — Ira Levin

They promised me you wouldn't be hurt," he said. "And you haven't been, really. I mean, suppose you'd had a baby and lost it; wouldn't it be the same? And we're getting so much in return, Ro. — Ira Levin