Robert Benchley Quotes

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.

A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down.

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.

The free-lance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.

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

The only cure for a real hangover is death.

So who's in a hurry?

Why don't you get out of that wet coat and into a dry martini?

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.

I don’t want to be an alarmist, but I think that the Younger Generation is up to something.... I base my apprehension on nothing more definite than the fact that they are always coming in and going out of the house, without any apparent reason.

In America there are two classes of travel — first class, and with children.

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

A baby is shown sitting on the floor. He appears to be about a year and a half old. Incidentally, he is a very plain baby. Strewn about him on the floor are the toys that he has been playing with. There are a ball, a rattle, a ring, a doll, a bell and a pair of roller-skates. Evidently, the candidate is supposed to be aghast at the roller-skates in the possession of such a small child. The man who drew that picture had evidently never furnished playthings for a small child. I can imagine nothing that would delight a child of a year and a half more than a pair of roller-skates to chew and spin and hit himself in the face with. They could also be dropped on Daddy when Daddy was lying on the floor in an attempt to be sociable. Of all the toys arranged before the child, the roller-skates are the most logical. … That is my great trouble in taking tests and examinations of any kind. I always want to argue with the examiner, because the examiner is always so obviously wrong.

I am more the inspirational type of speller. I work on hunches rather than mere facts, and the result is sometimes open to criticism by purists.

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