Robert Benchley Quotes

Who has not wished that his host would come out frankly at the beginning of the visit and state, in no uncertain terms, the rulesand preferences of the household in such matters as the breakfast hour? And who has not sounded out his guest to find out what he likes in the regulation of his diet and modus vivendi (mode of living)?

There seems to be a common strain of miserliness in the American people when it comes to throwing away toothpaste tubes which havea little left in the bottom.

If you look at eggs, you will see that each one is almost round but not quite ... Nature's way of distinguishing eggs from large golf balls.

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

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.

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

Sheer madness is, of course, the highest possible brow in humor.

I once heard of a murderer who propped his two victims up against a chess board in sporting attitudes and was able to get as far as Seattle before his crime was discovered.

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

All laughter is a muscular rigidity spasmodically relieved by involuntary twitching.

The art of cursing people seems to have lost its tang since the old days when a good malediction took four deep breaths to deliverand sent the outfielders scurrying toward the fence to field.

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

Sunday morning may be cheery enough, with its extra cup of coffee and litter of Sunday newspapers, but there is always hanging over it the ominous threat of 3 P.M., when the sun gets around to the back windows and life stops dead in its tracks.

[Reviewing the New York City Telephone Directory] But it is the opinion of the present reviewer that the weakness of plot is due to the great number of characters which clutter up the pages. The Russian school is responsible for this.

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.

But ice-crunching and loud gum-chewing, together with drumming on tables, and whistling the same tune 70 times in succession, because they indicate an indifference on the part of the perpetrator to the rest of the world in general, are not only registered on the delicate surfaces of the brain but eat little holes in it until it finally collapses or blows up.

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.

She sleeps alone at last.

A freelance is one who gets paid by the word -- per piece or perhaps.

One cubic foot less of space and it would have constituted adultery.

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.

You want to go easy on the suicide stuff - first thing you know, you'll ruin your health.

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

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.

One of the great natural phenomena is the way in which a tube of toothpaste suddenly empties itself when it hears that you are planning a trip, so that when you come to pack it is just a twisted shell of its former self, with not even a cubic millimeter left to be squeezed out.

The knocking out of a pipe can be made almost as important as the smoking of it, especially if there are nervous people in the room. A good, smart knock of a pipe against a tin wastebasket and you will have a neurasthenic out of his chair and into the window sash in no time.

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

I can get dressed earlier in the evening with every intention of going to a dance at midnight, but somehow after the theatre the thing to do seems to be either to go to bed or sit around somewhere. It doesn't seem possible that somewhere people can be expecting you at an hour like that.

Streets full of water. Please Advise.

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

New York - The city where the people from Oshkosh look at the people from Dubuque in the next theater seats and say "These New Yorkers don't dress any better than we do.

I don't trust a bank that would lend money to such a poor risk.

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.

Charlemagne either died or was born or did something with the Holy Roman Empire in 800.

There is probably not more than one hundred dollars in cash in circulation today. That is, if you were to call in all the bills and silver and gold in the country at noon tomorrow and pile them on the table, you would find that you had just about one hundred dollars, with perhaps several Canadian pennies and a few peppermint Life Savers.

I have often wondered how they manage to get return envelopes which miss, by one-quarter of an inch, fitting the blank you are supposed to return. They say, "Please fill out and return the enclosed envelope," and the enclosed envelope is always one-quarter of an inch too small.

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

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

There is no doubt that every healthy, normal boy...should own a dog at some time in his life, preferably between the ages of forty-five and fifty.

You won't find one fish in a million that has enough sense to come in when it rains.

I can't bring myself to say, 'Well, I guess I'll be toddling along.' It isn't that I can't toddle. It's just that I can't guess I'll toddle.

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

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.

The naturalistic literature of this country has reached such a state that no family of characters is considered true to life whichdoes not include at least two hypochondriacs, one sadist, and one old man who spills food down the front of his vest.

The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. That remark in itself wouldn’t make any sense if quoted as it stands. The average man ought to be allowed a quotation of no less than three sentences, one to make his statement and two to explain what he meant. Ralph Waldo Emerson was about the only one who could stand having his utterances broken up into sentence quotations, and every once in a while even he doesn’t sound so sensible in short snatches.

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.

If there is a streak of ham anywhere in an actor, Shakespeare will bring it out.

If only those old walls could talk...how boring they would be.