Q 6

PLAYBOY: How do you know when it's over?

Fran Lebowitz: When the phone rings and I don't care who it is.

Q 7

PLAYBOY: What are some of the things you like? Let's run down a list.

Fran Lebowitz: OK, magazines: I read the National Enquirer, because I feel that it is the most entertaining and truthful newspaper. I read Forbes magazine, because Malcolm sends it to me and because I used to feel I might learn to be rich from reading it. Then I realized that all the stories of people who are self-made millionaires are the same: Someone borrowed $1500 from his brother-in-law, went into a garage and three months later owned a $40,000,000 computer company. So I realized pretty soon that I was not that type of person. And I read The New Yorker, because I'm a sensualist. I like the paper. Favorite sport: hailing a cab. Favorite TV show: Family Feud. But I like People's Court. In fact, all decisions should be made on People's Court. There should be something called People's Supreme Court. Favorite animal: steak. Favorite sexual experience: a John Leonard review. Everyone has his own idea of sex.

Q 8

PLAYBOY: What do you cook for guests?

Fran Lebowitz: I don't have guests. I occasionally suffer the presence of people from out of town. But they do not eat there. I'm not really a gracious hostess. When I cook for myself, I cook baked potatoes. They're very easy to cook. You put them in the oven, and when you smell burning, they're done.

Q 9

PLAYBOY: What do you do with lovers who stay overnight?

Fran Lebowitz: One hopes they have to leave early in the morning to go to school.

Q 10

PLAYBOY: What qualities should the perfect host have?

Fran Lebowitz: Largess. That's the key quality. A host should always be asking you what you like. The same quality, you know, that a perfect whore has, only with a big house. And every bedroom should have a phone. It's particularly important to have a phone in your bedroom if you're someone's house guest, especially in Europe. I figure if someone can afford a house in Europe, he can afford to have me make phone calls.

Q 11

PLAYBOY: Which writers do you admire?

Fran Lebowitz: Well, I prefer dead writers, because I don't see them at parties. Oscar Wilde, he's one of my favorites. I like Hawthorne very much. Enjoy Hawthorne even. Nabokov, Roland Barthes, Jane Austen, Henry James I admire very much. Twain I love. Twain I really love. I know he's very highly regarded, but I don't think he's taken very seriously. He wrote humorous things, and humorous writers are never taken seriously enough. In fact, they are always the most serious writers and the most serious people.

Cheever, John O'Hara--O'Hara is really an underrated American writer. He is a much better writer than Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby is a very adolescent book. In fact, I consider that book to be full of the basest sort of longing. And it's a lie. Hemingway I do not like. I'm not interested in that kind of butch statement. Faulkner I have never been able to read. And actually, I consider that a criticism of a writer, because if I can't read him, who can?

Q 12

PLAYBOY: What should a woman's quest in life be--to find the perfect man?

Fran Lebowitz: A woman's quest in life should be to find the perfect apartment. And I have found the perfect apartment. The perfect apartment is the first floor of the Metropolitan Museum. With a sofa.