"Calling a taxi in Texas is like calling a rabbi in Iraq"
About this Quote
Lebowitz lands the joke with the cool cruelty of a city-dweller watching American infrastructure fail in real time. On the surface, it is a one-liner about the practical impossibility of hailing a cab in Texas. Underneath, it is a cultural indictment: a state built around sprawl and car ownership has made the basic urban act of summoning shared transit feel not just inconvenient but nearly unthinkable.
The line works because of its asymmetry. A taxi is mundane; a rabbi in Iraq (as she frames it) carries the weight of geopolitical upheaval, minority flight, and the erasure of once-present communities. The hyperbole is intentionally tasteless in that classic Lebowitz way: she borrows the language of catastrophe to describe a petty annoyance, exposing how “normal” in much of America is structurally hostile to anything resembling city life. It’s also a dig at the way Texas markets itself as modern and booming while remaining, at street level, stubbornly anti-pedestrian and anti-public.
Context matters: Lebowitz’s persona is the professional curmudgeon, a New York partisan whose humor thrives on exaggeration, impatience, and the pleasure of saying the impolite thing cleanly. The subtext isn’t really about Texas versus Iraq; it’s about how place determines possibility. In her worldview, if you can’t summon a taxi, you’re not just stranded - you’re living in a culture that has quietly decided you should never have been walking in the first place.
The line works because of its asymmetry. A taxi is mundane; a rabbi in Iraq (as she frames it) carries the weight of geopolitical upheaval, minority flight, and the erasure of once-present communities. The hyperbole is intentionally tasteless in that classic Lebowitz way: she borrows the language of catastrophe to describe a petty annoyance, exposing how “normal” in much of America is structurally hostile to anything resembling city life. It’s also a dig at the way Texas markets itself as modern and booming while remaining, at street level, stubbornly anti-pedestrian and anti-public.
Context matters: Lebowitz’s persona is the professional curmudgeon, a New York partisan whose humor thrives on exaggeration, impatience, and the pleasure of saying the impolite thing cleanly. The subtext isn’t really about Texas versus Iraq; it’s about how place determines possibility. In her worldview, if you can’t summon a taxi, you’re not just stranded - you’re living in a culture that has quietly decided you should never have been walking in the first place.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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