Robert Benchley Quotes

We call ourselves a free nation, and yet we let ourselves be told what cabs we can and can't take by a man at a hotel door, simply because he has a drum major's uniform on.

Why don't you get out of that wet coat and into a dry martini?

The free-lance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.

You might think that after thousands of years of coming up too soon and getting frozen, the crocus family would have had a little sense knocked into it.

Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed be doing at that moment.

In America there are two classes of travel - first class, and with children.

Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people.

A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance of turning around three times before lying down.

Dachshunds are ideal dogs for small children, as they are already stretched and pulled to such a length that the child cannot do much harm one way or the other.

There is no such place as Budapest. Perhaps you are thinking of Bucharest, and there is no such place as Bucharest, either.

A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down.

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.

Tell us your phobias and we will tell you what you are afraid of

Who said time machines haven't been built yet? They already exist. They're called books

An ardent supporter of the hometown team should go to a game prepared to take offense, no matter what happens.

Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing.

I have tried to know absolutely nothing about a great many things, and I have succeeded fairly well.

The pencil sharpener is about as far as I have ever got in operating a complicated piece of machinery with any success.

England and America should scrap cricket and baseball and come up with a new game that they both can play. Like baseball, for example.

There may be said to be two classes of people in the world; those who constantly divide the people of the world into two classes and those who do not.

Most of the arguments to which I am party fall somewhat short of being impressive, owing to the fact that neither I nor my opponent knows what we are talking about.

Let's get out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini.

The Great Arizona Desert is full of the bleaching bones of people who waited for me to start something.

Except for an occasional heart attack I feel as young as I ever did.

Even nowadays a man can't step up and kill a woman without feeling just a bit unchivalrous.

Nothing makes a man feel older than to hear a band coming up the street and not to have the impulse to rush downstairs and out on to the sidewalk.

It was one of those plays in which all of the actors unfortunately enunciated very clearly.

There is probably no more obnoxious class of citizen, taken end for end, than the returning vacationist.

Central Park is the grandiose symbol of the front yard each child in New York hasn't got.

Every boy should have two things: a dog and a mother who lets him have one

A great many people have come up to me and asked how I manage to get so much work done and still keep looking so dissipated.

A real hangover is nothing to try out family remedies on. The only cure for a real hangover is death.

I know I'm drinking myself to a slow death, but then I'm in no hurry.

The ideal age for a boy to own a dog is between forty-five and fifty.

Drinking makes such fools of people, and people are such fools to begin with that it's compounding a felony.

The only cure for a real hangover is death.

There seems to be no lengths to which humorless people will not go to analyze humor. It seems to worry them.

In preparing the soil for planting, you will need several tools. Dynamite would be a beautiful thing to use, but it would have a tendency to get the dirt into the front-hall and track up the stairs.

Anyone who tries to keep track of what is happening in China is going to end up by wearing all the skin of his left ear from twirling around on it.

In a house where there are small children the bathroom soon takes on the appearance of the Old Curiosity Shop.

At fifteen one is first beginning to realize that everything isn't money and power in this world, and is casting about for joys that do not turn to dross in one's hands.

The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him.

I am more the inspirational type of speller. I work on hunches rather than mere facts, and the result is sometimes open to criticism by purists.

The biggest obstacle to professional writing is the necessity for changing a typewriter ribbon.

There are several ways to apportion the family income, all of them unsatisfactory.

Great literature must spring from an upheaval in the author's soul. If that upheaval is not present then it must come from the works of any other author which happens to be handy and easily adapted.

For a nation which has an almost evil reputation for bustle, bustle, bustle, and rush, rush, rush, we spend an enormous amount of time standing around in line in front of windows, just waiting.

If you think that you have caught a cold, call in a good doctor. Call in three good doctors and play bridge.

One of the chief duties of the fan is to engage in arguments with the man behind him. This department of the game has been allowed to run down fearfully.

The most common of all antagonisms arises from a man's taking a seat beside you on the train, a seat to which he is completely entitled.