Fred Allen Quotes

The advertising world had space men in it before spacemen existed.

During the Samuel Johnson days they had big men enjoying small talk; today we have small men enjoying big talk.

Imitation is the sincerest form of television.

The average girl would rather have beauty than brains because she knows the average man can see much better than he can think- Ladies' Home JournalI'd rather have two girls at seventeen than one at thirty-four

To a newspaperman, a human being is an item with skin wrapped around it.

I learned law so well, the day I graduated I sued the college, won the case, and got my tuition back.

A molehill man is a pseudo-busy executive who comes to work at 9 AM and finds a molehill on his desk. He has until 5 PM to make this molehill into a mountain. An accomplished molehill man will often have his mountain finished before lunch.

A committee is a group of the unprepared, appointed by the unwilling to do the unnecessary.

The average vice-president is a form of executive fungus that attaches itself to a desk. On a boat this growth would be called a barnacle.

The last time I saw him he was walking down lover's lane holding his own hand.

Hollywood is a great place if you're an orange.

English coffee tastes like water that has been squeezed out of a wet sleeve.

There are two kinds of jokes - funny jokes and Jack Benny jokes.

If I could get my membership fee back, I'd resign from the human race.

We are living in the machine age. For the first time in history the comedian has been compelled to supply himself with jokes and comedy material to compete with the machine. Whether he knows it or not, the comedian is on a treadmill to oblivion.

An actor's popularity is fleeting. His success has the life expectancy of a small boy who is about to look into a gas tank with a lighted match.

Cocktail party: A gathering held to enable forty people to talk about themselves at the same time. The man who remains after the liquor is gone is the host.

The vice-president of an advertising agency is a bit of executive fungus that forms on a desk that has been exposed to conference.

It is probably not love that makes the world go around, but rather those mutually supportive alliances through which partners recognize their dependence on each other for the achievement of shared and private goals.

Radio is a bag of mediocrity where little men with carbon minds wallow in sluice of their own making.

My father never raised his hand to any one of his children, except in self-defense.

He was so narrow minded that if he fell on a pin it would blind him in both eyes.

The first thing that strikes a visitor to Paris is a taxi.

My agent gets 10 percent of everything I get, except the blinding headaches.

If criticism had any power to harm, the skunk would be extinct by now.

All I know about humor is that I don't know anything about it.

Some movie stars wear their sunglasses even in church. They're afraid God might recognize them and ask for autographs.

She used to be a teacher but she has no class now.

A telescope will magnify a star a thousand times, but a good press agent can do even better.

Everywhere outside New York City is Bridgeport, Connecticut.

An income tax form is like a laundry list - either way you lose your shirt.

I always have trouble remembering three things: faces, names, and - I can't remember what the third thing is.

Hollywood is a place where people from Iowa mistake each other for stars.

A committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing, but who, as a group, can meet and decide that nothing can be done.

I'm going to Boston to see my doctor. He's a very sick man.

I play a musical instrument a little, but only for my own amazement.

When Jack Benny plays the violin, it sounds as though the strings are still in the cat.

Radio is called a medium because it is rare that anything is well done.

Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted.

All that the comedian has to show for his years of work and aggravation is the echo of forgotten laughter.