Robert Benchley Quotes - Page 4

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• The problem of what to wear while lolling about the house on a Sunday afternoon is becoming more and more acute as the fashions in lolling garments change. The American home is in danger of taking on the appearance of an Oriental bordello.

  Robert Benchley

  Fashion, Home, Sunday

  Robert Benchley (1940). “My Ten Years in a Quandary”

  6 Copy quote

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

  Robert Benchley

  Men, Thinking, Monkeys

  My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew "Quick Quotations" (1936)

  8 Copy quote

• The way to go to the circus, however, is with someone who has seen perhaps one theatrical performance before in his life and that in the High School hall... The scales of sophistication are struck from your eyes and you see in the circus a gathering of men and women who are able to do things as a matter of course which you couldn't do if your life depended on it.

  Robert Benchley

  Eye, School, Men

  Life Magazine, April 14, 1921.

  17 Copy quote

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

  Robert Benchley

  Real, Hangover, Trying

  Robert Benchley (2016). “My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew”, p.297, Pickle Partners Publishing

  12 Copy quote

• Streets full of water. Please Advise.

  Robert Benchley

  Funny, Humor, Water

  "Final telegram to be sent. STOP" by Stephen Moss, www.theguardian.com. July 10, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

• She sleeps alone at last.

  Robert Benchley

  Funny, Death, Suicide

  Quoted in Edmund Fuller, 2500 Anecdotes for All Occasions (1943)

  5 Copy quote

• I do most of my work sitting down; that's where I shine.

  Robert Benchley

  Shining, Sitting Down, Sitting

  Quoted in Evan Esar, The Dictionary of Humorous Quotations (1949)

  5 Copy quote

• A man may take care of a furnace for twenty-five years and still forget to duck his head when he starts going down the cellar stairs.

  Robert Benchley

  Fun, Men, Years

  Robert Benchley, Gluyas Williams (1949). “Chips Off the Old Benchley”, New York : Harper

  6 Copy quote

• Nine-tenths of the value of a sense of humor in writing is not in the things it makes one write but in the things it keeps one from writing. It is especially valuable in this respect in serious writing, and no one without a sense of humor should ever write seriously. For without knowing what is funny, one is constantly in danger of being funny without knowing it.

  Robert Benchley

  Writing, Knowing, Serious

  Life Magazine, March 8, 1929.

  4 Copy quote

• Anyone will be glad to admit that he knows nothing about beagling, or the Chinese stock market, or ballistics, but there is not a man or woman alive who does not claim to know how to cure hiccoughs.

  Robert Benchley

  Men, Chinese, Doe

  Robert Benchley (1947). “Benchley--or else!”

  6 Copy quote

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

  Robert Benchley

  Actors, Ham, Streaks

  4 Copy quote

• I never liked bananas much anyway. Two-thirds of the way down even one banana I am willing to concede defeat smilingly and give the rest to the nearest monkey.

  Robert Benchley

  Two, Giving, Monkeys

  Robert Benchley (2016). “My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew”, p.282, Pickle Partners Publishing

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Robert Benchley

  Beautiful, Track, Tools

  Robert Benchley (1925). “Of All Things”

  9 Copy quote

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

  Robert Benchley

  Death, Suicide, Men

  Robert Benchley (2010). “The Athletic Benchley: 105 Exercises from the Detroit Athletic Club News”, Glendower Media

  17 Copy quote

• A child of three cannot raise its chubby fist to its mouth to remove a piece of carpet which it is through eating, without being made the subject of a psychological seminar of child-welfare experts, and written up, along with five hundred other children of three who have put their hands to their mouths for the same reason.

  Robert Benchley

  Children, Hands, Childhood

  Robert Benchley (1970). “Benchley Lost and Found: 39 Prodigal Pieces”, p.69, Courier Corporation

  4 Copy quote

• We are constantly being surprised that people did things well before we were born. We are constantly remarking on the fact that things are done well by people other than ourselves. "The Japanese are a remarkable little people," we say, as if we were doing them a favor. "He is an Arab, but you ought to hear him play the zither." Why "but"?

  Robert Benchley

  Play, People, Prejudice

  Robert Benchley (2016). “My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew”, p.49, Pickle Partners Publishing

  4 Copy quote

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

  Robert Benchley

  Money, Income, Way

  7 Copy quote

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

  Robert Benchley

  Wall, Would Be, Boring

  Robert Benchley (1976). “The Treasurer's Report: And Other Aspects of Community Singing”, Amereon Limited

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Robert Benchley

  Dog, Boys, Healthy

  4 Copy quote

• I have been told by hospital authorities that more copies of my works are left behind by departing patients than those of any other author.

  Robert Benchley

  Comedy, Patient, Hospitality

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Robert Benchley

  Justice, Wells, I Can

  4 Copy quote

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

  Robert Benchley

  Mother, Dog, Animal

  14 Copy quote

• Work is a form of nervousness.

  Robert Benchley

  Form, Nervousness

  Robert Benchley (1951). “My ten years in a quandary and how they grew”

  4 Copy quote

• When we think back to our forefathers, with their sedentary lives of forest-chopping, railroad-building, fortune-founding, their fox-hunting and Indian taming, their prancing about in the mazurka and the polka, with their coattails flying and their bustles bouncing, to say nothing of their all-day sessions with the port and straight bourbon,... we must realize that we are a nation, not of neurasthenics, but of sissies and slow-motion sports.

  Robert Benchley

  Sports, Exercise, Thinking

  8 Copy quote

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

  Robert Benchley

  Funny, Humor, Feet

  4 Copy quote

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