Fred Allen

My hometown was so dull that one time the tide went out and never came back.

California is a fine place to live--if you happen to be an orange.

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

Committee--a group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing can be done.

Television is a new medium. It's called a medium because nothing is well-done.

What's on your mind, if you will allow the overstatement?

[Television is] the triumph of machine over people.

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

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

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

Television is a medium because anything well done is rare.

Do we really deserve top billing?

What's on your mind, if you will allow the overstatement.

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

Imitation is the sincerest form of television.

California is a great place to live if you're an orange.

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

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

Television is a device that permits people who haven't anything to do to watch people who can't do anything.

I have just returned from Boston. It is the only thing to do if you find yourself up there.

Advertising is 85% confusion and 15% commission.

I can't understand why a person will take a year to write a novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars.

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

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

You can take all the sincerity in Hollywood, place it in the navel of a firefly and still have room enough for three caraway seeds and a producer's heart.

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

I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done.

A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized.

I have just returned from Boston. It is the only sane thing to do if you find yourself up there.