Robert Benchley
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.Collection: Drama
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.Collection: Moving
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.Collection: Funny
One of the easiest forms of pretense to break down is the pretense of enthusiasm for exotic foods. Just bring on the exotic foods.Collection: Justice
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.Collection: Attitude
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.Collection: Party
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.Collection: Children
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.Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: Party
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.Collection: New York
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.Collection: Eggs
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.Collection: Space
Except for an occasional heart attack I feel as young as I ever did.Collection: Funny
The ideal age for a boy to own a dog is between forty-five and fifty.Collection: Funny
It was one of those plays in which all of the actors unfortunately enunciated very clearly.Collection: Art
The pencil sharpener is about as far as I have ever got in operating a complicated piece of machinery with any success.Collection: Technology
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.Collection: Half
Consider the number of young people all over the world who are getting married, day in and day out, for no other reason than thatsomeone of the opposite sex looks well in a green jersey or sings baritone, and then tell me that divorce has reached menacing proportions. The surface of divorce has not even been scratched yet.Collection: Marriage
Traveling with children corresponds roughly to traveling third class in Bulgaria.Collection: Children
England and America should scrap cricket and baseball and come up with a new game that they both can play. Like baseball, for example.Collection: Baseball
But ice-crunching and loud gum-chewing, together with drumming on tables, and whistling the same tune 70 times in succession, because they indicate an indifference on the part of the perpetrator to the rest of the world in general, are not only registered on the delicate surfaces of the brain but eat little holes in it until it finally collapses or blows up.Collection: Blow
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.Collection: Night
There is probably no more obnoxious class of citizen, taken end for end, than the returning vacationist.Collection: Taken
The knocking out of a pipe can be made almost as important as the smoking of it, especially if there are nervous people in the room. A good, smart knock of a pipe against a tin wastebasket and you will have a neurasthenic out of his chair and into the window sash in no time.Collection: Smart
You won't find one fish in a million that has enough sense to come in when it rains.Collection: Rain
New York - The city where the people from Oshkosh look at the people from Dubuque in the next theater seats and say "These New Yorkers don't dress any better than we do.Collection: New York
Infants need the most sleep, and, what is more, get it. Stunning them with a soft, padded hammer is the best way to insure their getting it at the right times.Collection: Sleep
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.Collection: Writing
The most common of all antagonisms arises from a man's taking a seat beside you on the train, a seat to which he is completely entitled.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Men
Central Park is the grandiose symbol of the front yard each child in New York hasn't got.Collection: New York
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.Collection: Art
Charlemagne either died or was born or did something with the Holy Roman Empire in 800.Collection: Art
It has always seemed to me that the most difficult part of building a bridge would be the start.Collection: Bridges
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.Collection: Thinking
Tell us your phobias and we will tell you what you are afraid ofCollection: Funny
There is no such place as Budapest. Perhaps you are thinking of Bucharest, and there is no such place as Bucharest, either.Collection: Thinking
The Great Arizona Desert is full of the bleaching bones of people who waited for me to start something.Collection: People
All laughter is a muscular rigidity spasmodically relieved by involuntary twitching.Collection: Laughter
Sheer madness is, of course, the highest possible brow in humor.Collection: Madness
You want to go easy on the suicide stuff - first thing you know, you'll ruin your health.Collection: Inspirational
The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. That remark in itself wouldn’t make any sense if quoted as it stands. The average man ought to be allowed a quotation of no less than three sentences, one to make his statement and two to explain what he meant. Ralph Waldo Emerson was about the only one who could stand having his utterances broken up into sentence quotations, and every once in a while even he doesn’t sound so sensible in short snatches.Collection: Men
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.Collection: People
[Reviewing the New York City Telephone Directory] But it is the opinion of the present reviewer that the weakness of plot is due to the great number of characters which clutter up the pages. The Russian school is responsible for this.Collection: Funny
People who begin sentences with "I may be old-fashioned but--" are usually not only old-fashioned but wrong. I never thought the time would come when I should catch myself leading off with that crack. But I feel it coming on right now.Collection: People
The problem of what to wear while lolling about the house on a Sunday afternoon is becoming more and more acute as the fashions in lolling garments change. The American home is in danger of taking on the appearance of an Oriental bordello.Collection: Fashion
After an author has been dead for some time, it becomes increasingly difficult for his publishers to get out a new book by him each year.Collection: Book
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.Collection: Eye
A freelance is one who gets paid by the word -- per piece or perhaps.Collection: Funny