Robert Benchley famous quotes

04-17-2025

The freelance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.
-- Robert Benchley

#Writing #Men #Pieces
In America there are two classes of travel - first class, and with children.
-- Robert Benchley

#Travel #Children #Airplane
A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance of turning around three times before lying down.
-- Robert Benchley

#Loyalty #Dog #Lying
Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people.
-- Robert Benchley

#Work #Humor #People
Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed be doing at that moment.
-- Robert Benchley

#Work #Comedy #Moments
It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.
-- Robert Benchley

#Time #Work #Writing
Dachshunds are ideal dogs for small children, as they are already stretched and pulled to such a length that the child cannot do much harm one way or the other.
-- Robert Benchley

#Dog #Children #Pet
A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down.
-- Robert Benchley

#Dog #Perseverance #Lying
The only cure for a real hangover is death.
-- Robert Benchley

#Real #Hangover #Cures
England and America should scrap cricket and baseball and come up with a new game that they both can play. Like baseball, for example.
-- Robert Benchley

#Baseball #Games #Play
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
Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing.
-- Robert Benchley

#Inspirational #Funny #Sarcastic
Tell us your phobias and we will tell you what you are afraid of
-- Robert Benchley

#Funny #Witty #Humorous
A man gets on a train with his little boy, and gives the conductor only one ticket. 'How old's your kid?' the conductor says, and the father says, 'He's four years old.' 'He looks at least twelve to me,' says the conductor. And the father says, 'Can I help it if he worries?
-- Robert Benchley

#Father #Kids #Boys
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.
-- Robert Benchley

#Class #Two #People
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
Except for an occasional heart attack I feel as young as I ever did.
-- Robert Benchley

#Heart #Youth #Occasional
Why don't you get out of that wet coat and into a dry martini?
-- Robert Benchley

#Funny #Witty #Humorous
After an author has been dead for some time, it becomes increasingly difficult for his publishers to get a new book out of him each year.
-- Robert Benchley

#Book #Years #Comedy
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
I never knew anyone yet who got up at six who did anything more useful between that time and breakfast than banging a tennis ballup against the side of the house, waiting for the more civilized members of the party to get up.
-- Robert Benchley

#Party #Sleep #House
If you are one of the hewers of wood and drawers of small weekly paychecks, your letters will have to contain some few items of news or they will be accounted dry stuff.... But if you happen to be of a literary turn of mind, or are, in any way, likely to become famous, you may settle down to an afternoon of letter-writing on nothing more sprightly in the way of news than the shifting of the wind from south to south-east.
-- Robert Benchley

#Writing #Wind #Mind
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.
-- Robert Benchley

#Family #Country #Character
If Shakespeare were alive today and writing comedy for the movies, he would be the head-liner for the Mack Sennett studios.
-- Robert Benchley

#Writing #Would Be #Alive
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.
-- Robert Benchley

#Travel #Self #Shells
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.
-- Robert Benchley

#Country #Money #Gold
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.
-- Robert Benchley

#Missing #Envelopes #Return

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