Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

7 Quotes That Should Be in the New Joan Rivers Memoir

Getty Images

Joan Rivers fans who can’t afford her $28 million apartment will soon have another way to catch up with the late comedian.

AP reports that her daughter, Melissa, is writing a memoir.

“The Book of Joan: Tales of Mirth, Mischief, and Manipulation” is set for publication on May 5 by Crown Archetype, a subset of Penguin. According to The Huffington Post, the book “will feature jokes, stories and advice.”

In that spirit, let’s revisit some of Joan Rivers’ pearls of wisdom:

On pets: “Don’t make friends with your dogs. The sons of bitches will literally die ahead of you and cause you grief!” (Hollywood Reporter, 2013)

On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: “Well, I think we should make it stop and I think I know how to make it stop. I think every Palestinian should get a nose job. Because once somebody has had a nose job they won’t fight ‘cause they’re scared their new nose would get broken. I think we should send over every great Jewish plastic surgeon doctor, fix their noses, and there will be peace in the Middle East.”

On Gwyneth Paltrow being named People’s Magazine’s Most Beautiful Woman: “Look at Gwyneth Paltrow being named the most beautiful this year. She got Helen Keller and Stevie Wonder to vote.” (Hollywood Reporter 2013)

On Selena Gomez criticizing Israel’s war in Gaza: “Oh, Selena Gomez, that college grad. Let’s see if she can spell ‘Palestinian.”

On dealing with mothers-in-law: “I told my mother-in-law that my house was her house, and she said, ‘Get the hell off my property.’”

On making her “Tonight Show” comeback, 49 years later: “Being in the studio brought back the most wonderful, wonderful memories of the night that jump-started my career. So when people ask me, ‘Why was last night different from all other nights?’ I’ll tell them that it certainly beats Passover!”

On that outfit you’re thinking of buying for your niece’s bat mitzvah: “Style: It’s like herpes. You either have it or you don’t.” (The Tonight Show With David Letterman, 2014]

Oh Joan. Can we talk?

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.