Robert Benchley Quotes - Page 5

Quotes about:

• It is rather to be chosen than great riches, unless I have omitted something from the quotation.

  Robert Benchley

  Riches, Chosen, Quotations

  Benchley - Or Else! (1947)

  4 Copy quote

• I am both a public and a private school boy myself, having always changed schools just as the class in English in the new school was taking up Silas Marner, with the result that it was the only book in the English language that I knew until I was eighteen--but, boy, did I know Silas Marner!

  Robert Benchley

  Book, School, Boys

  Robert Benchley (1976). “Chips Off the Old Benchley”, Amereon Limited

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  Robert Benchley

  Morning, Coffee, Sunday

  Robert Benchley (1946). “One Minute, Please”

  4 Copy quote

• Birds which are the same color as the foliage in which they nest are less likely to be disturbed by other birds who want to drop in and chat, and therefore last longer.

  Robert Benchley

  Color, Bird, Lasts

  Robert Benchley (1976). “Chips Off the Old Benchley”, Amereon Limited

  5 Copy quote

• 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.

  Robert Benchley

  Dance, People, Theatre

  7 Copy quote

• What is to be done with people who can't read a Sunday paper without messing it all up?... Show me a Sunday paper which has been left in a condition fit only for kite flying, and I will show you an antisocial and dangerous character who has left it that way.

  Robert Benchley

  Character, Sunday, People

  Robert Benchley (1932). “No Poems”

  5 Copy quote

• I suppose that one of the psychological principles of advertising is to so hammer the name of your product into the mind of the timid buyer that when he is confronted with a brusk demand for an order he can't think of anything else to say, whether he wants it or not.

  Robert Benchley

  Thinking, Order, Names

  4 Copy quote

• What is the disease which manifests itself in an inability to leave a party--any party at all--until it is all over and the lightsare being put out?... I suppose that part of this mania for staying is due to a fear that, if I go, something good will happen and I'll miss it. Somebody might do card tricks, or shoot somebody else.

  Robert Benchley

  Party, Missing, Curiosity

  4 Copy quote

• For most visitors to Manhattan, both foreign and domestic, New York is the Shrine of the Good Time. "I don't see how you stand it," they often say to the native New Yorker who has been sitting up past his bedtime for a week in an attempt to tire his guest out. "It's all right for a week or so, but give me the little old home town when it comes to living." And, under his breath, the New Yorker endorses the transfer and wonders himself how he stands it.

  Robert Benchley

  New York, Home, Past

  4 Copy quote

• In Milwaukee last month a man died laughing over one of his own jokes. That's what makes it so tough for us outsiders. We have to fight home competition.

  Robert Benchley

  Funny, Home, Humor

  Robert Benchley (1954). “The Benchley Roundup”

  4 Copy quote

• 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)?

  Robert Benchley

  Breakfast, Guests, Regulation

  Robert Benchley (1925). “Of All Things”

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Robert Benchley

  Hands, Joy, Firsts

  Robert Benchley (1985). “Benchley at the Theatre: Dramatic Criticism, 1920-1940”

  8 Copy quote

• In a house where there are small children the bathroom soon takes on the appearance of the Old Curiosity Shop.

  Robert Benchley

  Children, House, Curiosity

  Robert Benchley (1943). “Benchley beside himself”

  8 Copy quote

• Other men wear white suits in summer and it doesn't seem to bother them. But my white suit seems to be a little whiter than theirs. I think also that it may have something written on the back of it, although I can't find it when I take the suit off.

  Robert Benchley

  Summer, Men, Thinking

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

  4 Copy quote

• I can remember the day when all that a professor was supposed to do was to mark "C minus" on students' examination papers, then gohome to tea. Nowadays they seem to feel that they must know just how much we (outside the university) eat, what we do with our spare time, and how we like our eggs.

  Robert Benchley

  Eggs, Tea, Paper

  Robert Benchley (1943). “Benchley beside himself”

  4 Copy quote

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

  Robert Benchley

  Teamwork, Games, Preparation

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

  24 Copy quote

• There are several natural phenomena which I shall have to have explained to me before I can keep on going as a resident member ofthe human race. One is the metamorphosis which hats and suits undergo exactly one week after their purchase, whereby they are changed from smart, intensely becoming articles of apparel into something children use when they want to "dress up like daddy.

  Robert Benchley

  Children, Smart, Race

  Robert Benchley (1946). “20,000 leagues under the sea: or, David Copperfield”

  4 Copy quote

• Next to an old-fashioned church social, or possibly a monster bridge party, there is no buzz which can equal the sibilant buzz ofa matinée.

  Robert Benchley

  Party, Bridges, Church

  4 Copy quote

• One of the easiest forms of pretense to break down is the pretense of enthusiasm for exotic foods. Just bring on the exotic foods.

  Robert Benchley

  Justice, Exotic, Enthusiasm

  Robert Benchley (2016). “My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew”, p.303, Pickle Partners Publishing

  4 Copy quote

• Streets flooded. Please advise.

  Robert Benchley

  Venice, Please, Advise

  Quoted in The AlgonquinWits, ed. Robert E. Drennan (1968)

  6 Copy quote

• 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.

  Robert Benchley

  Men, Monkeys, Way

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

  4 Copy quote

• The discovery of phobias by psychiatrists has done much to clear the atmosphere. Whereas in the old days a person would say: 'Let's get the heck out of here!' today she says: 'Let's get the heck out of here! I've got claustrophobia.

  Robert Benchley

  Discovery, Atmosphere, Done

  Robert Benchley (2016). “My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew”, p.262, Pickle Partners Publishing

  4 Copy quote

• I can't quite define my aversion to asking questions of strangers. From snatches of family battles which I have heard drifting up from railway stations and street corners, I gather that there are a great many men who share my dislike for it, as well as an equal number of women who ... believe it to be the solution to most of this world's problems.

  Robert Benchley

  Believe, Men, Numbers

  Robert Benchley (1954). “The Benchley Roundup”

  54 Copy quote

• 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.

  Robert Benchley

  Track, Trying, Skins

  9 Copy quote

• Next to a shot of some good, habit-forming narcotic, there is nothing like travelling alone as a 'builder-upper.

  Robert Benchley

  Solitude, Next, Habit

  Robert Benchley (1976). “Chips Off the Old Benchley”, Amereon Limited

  7 Copy quote

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