Robert Benchley Quotes - Page 6

Quotes about:

• The Ultimate Day really begins the night before, when you sit up until one o'clock trying to get things into trunk and bags. This is when you discover the well-known fact that summer air swells articles to twice or three times their original size.

  Robert Benchley

  Summer, Night, Air

  Robert Benchley (2010). “The Athletic Benchley: 105 Exercises from the Detroit Athletic Club News”, p.43, Glendower Media

  4 Copy quote

• I once heard a woman laugh at that most tragic moment in all drama, the off-stage shot in "The Wild Duck," and I afterward had her killed, so there will be no more of that out of her.

  Robert Benchley

  Drama, Ducks, Laughing

  Robert Benchley (1932). “No Poems”

  4 Copy quote

• But compared with the task of selecting a piece of French pastry held by an impatient waiter a move in chess is like reaching for a salary check in its demand on the contemplative faculties.

  Robert Benchley

  Moving, Salary, Tasks

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

  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

• Nothing makes a man feel older than to hear a band coming up the street and not to have the impulse to rush downstairs and out on to the sidewalk.

  Robert Benchley

  Men, Band, Aging

  Robert Benchley (1932). “No Poems”

  16 Copy quote

• The biggest obstacle to professional writing is the necessity for changing a typewriter ribbon.

  Robert Benchley

  Writing, Typewriters, Ribbons

  Chips off the old Benchley (1949) "Learn to Write"

  9 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

• 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

• 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

• If Mr. Einstein doesn't like the natural laws of the universe, let him go back to where he came from.

  Robert Benchley

  Law, Comedy, Natural

  4 Copy quote

• I once heard of a murderer who propped his two victims up against a chess board in sporting attitudes and was able to get as far as Seattle before his crime was discovered.

  Robert Benchley

  Attitude, Games, Two

  Robert Benchley (2010). “The Athletic Benchley: 105 Exercises from the Detroit Athletic Club News”, p.24, Glendower Media

  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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• There is probably no moment more appalling than that in which the tongue comes suddenly upon the ragged edge of a space from which the old familiar filling has disappeared.

  Robert Benchley

  Space, Tongue, Moments

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

  4 Copy quote

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