Ira Levin > Quotes

“Anyone who needs more than one suitcase is a tourist, not a traveler”
― Ira Levin, Rosemary’s Baby

“Like so many unhappinesses, this one had begun with silence in the place of honest open talk.”
― Ira Levin, Rosemary's Baby

“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, This Perfect Day

“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, The Stepford Wives

“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, The Stepford Wives

“What’s the going price for a stay-in-the-kitchen wife with big boobs and no demands?”
― Ira Levin, The Stepford Wives

“Someday, he thought, I would like to meet a monster who looked like a monster.”
― Ira Levin, The Boys from Brazil

“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, The Stepford Wives

“You are only partly alive.”
― Ira Levin, This Perfect Day

“A chance to sit quietly and find out who you are; where you've been and where you're going.”
― Ira Levin, Rosemary’s Baby

“could anyone know when an actor was true and not acting?”
― Ira Levin, Rosemary's Baby

“When you're older you'll come to realize that acts of kindness are few and far between in this world of ours.”
― Ira Levin, Rosemary's baby

“Sex, yes; sexism, no.”
― Ira Levin, The Stepford Wives

“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, A Kiss Before Dying

“Better to live in doubt than to die in certainty.”
― Ira Levin, A Kiss Before Dying

“Bread now, or cake later”
― Ira Levin, A Kiss Before Dying

“Anyone who needs more than one suitcase,” he said as he double-locked their door, “is a tourist, not a traveler.”
― Ira Levin, Rosemary's Baby

“The baby kicked like a demon”
― ira levin, Rosemary’s Baby

“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, Chelsea Cain, The Boys from Brazil

“philosophers have warned us: if we forget the past, we are doomed to repeat it.”
― Ira Levin, The Boys From Brazil:

“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, The Stepford Wives

“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, This Perfect Day

“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, The Stepford Wives

“That green stuff outside is grass, and the yellow stuff coming down on it is sunshine.”
― Ira Levin, The Stepford Wives

“The thing to do was kill it. Obviously.”
― Ira Levin, Rosemary’s Baby

“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, Rosemary's Baby

“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, The Boys from Brazil

“Les gens qui ont besoin de plus qu une valise ne sont pas de vrais voyageurs, ce sont des touristes.”
― Ira Levin, Rosemary’s Baby

“Did you lose the game? Losing’s the same as winning; you know that, don’t you?” The”
― Ira Levin, This Perfect Day

“Joanna's period was late but came, thank God and the Pill.”
― Ira Levin, The Stepford Wives