TV Personality

                    People who are in television routinely are recognized by everyone: every single person that you will see on the street. I personally found that to be too much fame. Fame is something very much sought after in this culture—like money. Now, I don’t believe there’s such a thing as too much money, but there is such a thing as too much fame. And I think that writers have the perfect amount of fame. You have just enough to get a good table in a restaurant, but not so much that people come over and annoy you while you are eating. But if you are on television. I know people who are in television—they can’t walk down the street, people will come up constantly.

                    Also, it’s not just the number of people who recognize you, it’s the way in which you are perceived if you are in television because television is a very intimate medium—it’s in their house, they think they know them. A TV personality will be approached much more—and with much more familiarly—than a big movie star, because with the TV personality, they think, “Well, hi! It’s YOU! You see me in my underwear. You’re in the house. Oprah hi! Come over to eat! Oprah, you want to come over my house for dinner?” They think that Oprah is their next door neighbor. They don’t think that of Al Pacino. They know ‘cause they see him at a distance. It’s different.

Fran Lebowitz
Upon Reflection interview