Fran Lebowitz: Reflections on Austen

Fran Lebowitz is the best-selling author of Metropolitan Life, Social Studies, The Fran Lebowitz Reader, and is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair. Lebowitz has made a number of appearances as Judge Janice Goldberg on the television drama Law & Order, and has appeared on David Letterman and Charlie Rose. Last year Lebowitz was inducted into the International Best-Dressed List Hall of Fame. Long known for her irreverent humor and sardonic, aphoristic wit, a 1981 New York Magazine profile described Lebowitz as a moralist and "the Jane Austen of our time."

"Any artist who has that quality of timelessness has that quality because they tell the truth. Jane Austen's perceptions don't date because they are correct, and they will remain that way until human beings improve themselves intrinsically, and this will not happen."