S. J. Perelman: Love is not the dying moan of a distant violin

The dubious privilege of a freelance writer is he’s given the freedom to starve anywhere.

S. J. Perelman

editors editing writing

The main obligation is to amuse yourself.

S. J. Perelman

obligation

I guess I'm just an old mad scientist at bottom. Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care not who writes the nation's laws.

S. J. Perelman

girl beautiful funny

I tried to resist his overtures, but he plied me with symphonies, quartets, chamber music, and cantatas.

S. J. Perelman

quartets symphony music

I don't know where we're going or how we'll get there, but when we get there we'll be there - and that's something, even if it's nothing.

S. J. Perelman

ifs knows

If, at the close of business each evening, I myself can understand what I've written, I feel the day hasn't been totally wasted.

S. J. Perelman

evening written feels

There is such a thing as too much couth.

S. J. Perelman

gentility too-much civilization

I have no truck with lettuce, cabbage, and similar chlorophyll. Any dietitian will tell you that a running foot of apple strudel contains four times the vitamins of a bushel of beans.

S. J. Perelman

apples running food

Where would the Rockefellers be today if old John D. had gone on selling short-weight kerosene ... to widows and orphans instead of wisely deciding to mulct the whole country.

S. J. Perelman

widows-and-orphans entrepreneur country

I loathe writing. On the other hand I'm a great believer in money.

S. J. Perelman

believer writing hands

I cannot recall a more engaging passage in fiction, and I've been trying for almost eighteen seconds.

S. J. Perelman

humor criticism funny

English life, while very pleasant, is rather bland. I expected kindness and gentility and I found it, but there is such a thing as too much couth.

S. J. Perelman

too-much found kindness

There are nineteen words in Yiddish that convey gradations of disparagement, from a mild, fluttery helplessness to a state of downright, irreconcilable brutishness. All of them can be usefully employed to pinpoint the kind of individuals I write about.

S. J. Perelman

nineteen kind writing

If travel has taught me nothing more, and it certainly has, it's this: you never know when some trifling incident, utterly without significance, may pitchfork you into adventure or, by the same token, may not.

S. J. Perelman

may adventure travel

The worst disgrace that can befall a producer is an unkind notice from a New York reviewer. When this happens, the producer becomes a pariah in Hollywood. He is shunned by his friends, thrown into bankruptcy, and like a Japanese electing hara-kiri, he commits suttee.

S. J. Perelman

pariahs hollywood new-york

Do you know anything at all that nobody else knows or, for that matter, gives a damn about? If you do, then sit tight, because one of these days you're going to Hollywood as a technical supervisor on a million dollar movie.

S. J. Perelman

california giving funny

"In France," Marcel said with wintry dignity, "accidents occur in the bedroom, not the kitchen."

S. J. Perelman

kitchen france funny

I used to pride myself on being impervious to the sentimentalities of soap opera, but when that loveliest of actresses, Rachel Gurney, of Upstairs, Downstairs, perished on the Titanic, I wept so convulsively and developed such anorexia that I had to be force-fed.

S. J. Perelman

anorexia pride television

I'll dispose of my teeth as I see fit, and after they've gone, I'll get along. I started off living on gruel, and by God, I can always go back to it again.

S. J. Perelman

teeth cooking food

I found the pearl of the Orient slightly less exciting than a rainy Sunday evening in Rochester.

S. J. Perelman

pearls sunday inspirational

Love is not the dying moan of a distant violin - it's the triumphant twang of a bedspring.