Robert Benchley (1889-1945)

Quotes

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

• As for me, except for an occasional heart attack, I feel as young as I ever did.

• There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don't.

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

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

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

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

• 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.

• Streets full of water; please advise.

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

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

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

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

• 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.

• Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people.

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

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

• The freelance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.