Opera is where a guy gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings. Robert Benchley More Quotes by Robert Benchley More Quotes From Robert Benchley 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 mindwritingwind There seems to be a common strain of miserliness in the American people when it comes to throwing away toothpaste tubes which havea little left in the bottom. Robert Benchley commonlittlespeople The art of cursing people seems to have lost its tang since the old days when a good malediction took four deep breaths to deliverand sent the outfielders scurrying toward the fence to field. Robert Benchley fourpeopleart This congestion in the post offices is due to what are technically known as "regulations" but what are really a series of acrostics and anagrams devised by some officials who got around a table one night and tried to be funny. Robert Benchley modern-lifeofficenight A real hangover is nothing to try out family remedies on. The only cure for a real hangover is death. Robert Benchley hangoverrealtrying Most personal correspondence of today consists of letters the first half of which are given over to an indexed statement of why the writer hasn't written before, followed by one paragraph of small talk, with the remainder devoted to reasons why it is imperative that the letter be brought to a close. Robert Benchley halfletterstoday All that a spectator gets out of the game is fresh air, the comical articles in his program, the sight of twenty-two young men rushing about in mysterious formations, and whatever he brought in his flask. Robert Benchley airsightmen 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 boysbookschool 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 boysfatherkids Great literature must spring from an upheaval in the author's soul. If that upheaval is not present then it must come from the works of any other author which happens to be handy and easily adapted. Robert Benchley soulwritingspring Tell us your phobias and we will tell you what you are afraid of Robert Benchley humorouswittyfunny 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 sundaycoffeemorning 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 seriousknowingwriting Drinking makes such fools of people, and people are such fools to begin with that it's compounding a felony. Robert Benchley alcoholdrinkingpeople All laughter is a muscular rigidity spasmodically relieved by involuntary twitching. Robert Benchley rigidityrelievedlaughter 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 lastscolorbird 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 theatredancepeople My first big mistake was made when, in a moment of weakness, I consented to learn the game; for a man who can frankly say "I do not play bridge" is allowed to go over in the corner and run the pianola by himself, while the poor neophyte, no matter how much he may protest that he isn't "at all a good player, in fact I'm perfectly rotten," is never believed, but dragged into a game where it is discovered, too late, that he spoke the truth. Robert Benchley playermistakerunning If you look at eggs, you will see that each one is almost round but not quite ... Nature's way of distinguishing eggs from large golf balls. Robert Benchley eggsnaturegolf You might think that after thousands of years of coming up too soon and getting frozen, the crocus family would have had a little sense knocked into it. Robert Benchley frozenyearsthinking
