Robert Benchley Quotes - Page 5

Quotes about:

• I never liked bananas much anyway. Two-thirds of the way down even one banana I am willing to concede defeat smilingly and give the rest to the nearest monkey.

  Robert Benchley

  Two, Giving, Monkeys

  Robert Benchley (2016). “My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew”, p.282, Pickle Partners Publishing

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Robert Benchley (1925). “Of All Things”

  9 Copy quote

• A child of three cannot raise its chubby fist to its mouth to remove a piece of carpet which it is through eating, without being made the subject of a psychological seminar of child-welfare experts, and written up, along with five hundred other children of three who have put their hands to their mouths for the same reason.

  Robert Benchley

  Children, Hands, Childhood

  Robert Benchley (1970). “Benchley Lost and Found: 39 Prodigal Pieces”, p.69, Courier Corporation

  4 Copy quote

• Even nowadays a man can't step up and kill a woman without feeling just a bit unchivalrous.

  Robert Benchley

  Death, Suicide, Men

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

  17 Copy quote

• There are several ways to apportion the family income, all of them unsatisfactory.

  Robert Benchley

  Money, Income, Way

  7 Copy quote

• There is no doubt that every healthy, normal boy...should own a dog at some time in his life, preferably between the ages of forty-five and fifty.

  Robert Benchley

  Dog, Boys, Healthy

  4 Copy quote

• Every boy should have two things: a dog and a mother who lets him have one

  Robert Benchley

  Mother, Dog, Animal

  14 Copy quote

• When we think back to our forefathers, with their sedentary lives of forest-chopping, railroad-building, fortune-founding, their fox-hunting and Indian taming, their prancing about in the mazurka and the polka, with their coattails flying and their bustles bouncing, to say nothing of their all-day sessions with the port and straight bourbon,... we must realize that we are a nation, not of neurasthenics, but of sissies and slow-motion sports.

  Robert Benchley

  Sports, Exercise, Thinking

  8 Copy quote

• It is rather to be chosen than great riches, unless I have omitted something from the quotation.

  Robert Benchley

  Riches, Chosen, Quotations

  Benchley - Or Else! (1947)

  4 Copy quote

• One cubic foot less of space and it would have constituted adultery.

  Robert Benchley

  Funny, Humor, Feet

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Book, School, Boys

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

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Morning, Coffee, Sunday

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

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Color, Bird, Lasts

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

  5 Copy quote

• 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

  Dance, People, Theatre

  7 Copy quote

• What is to be done with people who can't read a Sunday paper without messing it all up?... Show me a Sunday paper which has been left in a condition fit only for kite flying, and I will show you an antisocial and dangerous character who has left it that way.

  Robert Benchley

  Character, Sunday, People

  Robert Benchley (1932). “No Poems”

  5 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

• 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

• 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

  Robert Benchley (1943). “Benchley beside himself”

  4 Copy quote

• 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

  Robert Benchley (1928). “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: Or, David Cooperfield”

  7 Copy quote

• It is one of the most discouraging experiences I have ever had, not forgetting the time when I winked at the Queen Mother in London once.

  Robert Benchley

  Mother, Queens, London

  Robert Benchley (2010). “The Athletic Benchley: 105 Exercises from the Detroit Athletic Club News”, p.118, Glendower Media

  5 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

• 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

• Anyone who tries to keep track of what is happening in China is going to end up by wearing all the skin of his left ear from twirling around on it.

  Robert Benchley

  Track, Trying, Skins

  9 Copy quote

• One of the chief duties of the fan is to engage in arguments with the man behind him. This department of the game has been allowed to run down fearfully.

  Robert Benchley

  Baseball, Running, Men

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

  7 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

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