Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Robert Benchley, fully Robert Charles Benchley

American Humorist, Newspaper Columnist and Film Actor

"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."

"A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance of turning around three times before lying down."

"A freelance writer is one who is paid per word, per piece, or perhaps."

"A great many people have come up to me and asked how I manage to get so much work done and still keep looking so dissipated."

"A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down."

"After an author has been dead for some time, it becomes increasingly difficult for his publishers to get a new book out of him each year."

"Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment."

"An ardent supporter of the hometown team should go to a game prepared to take offense, no matter what happens."

"As for me, except for an occasional heart attack, I feel as young as I ever did."

"Anyone will be glad to admit that he knows nothing about beagling, or the Chinese stock market, or ballistics, but there is not a man or woman alive who does not claim to know how to cure hiccoughs."

"Behind every argument is someone's ignorance."

"Central Park is the grandiose symbol of the front yard each child in New York hasn't got."

"At fifteen one is first beginning to realize that everything isn't money and power in this world, and is casting about for joys that do not turn to dross in one's hands."

"As the storm came nearer I began to realize that I hadn't made the most of my three years' immunity. In fact, I hadn't done a single thing about cleaning up my life. I was, if anything, an even more logical target for lightning than the last time I was in range. And thunderstorms don't creep up on you at seven o'clock in the morning in a non-thunderstorm country for nothing, you know. I lined up a rather panicky schedule of reforms."

"Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people."

"Consider the number of young people all over the world who are getting married, day in and day out, for no other reason than that someone 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."

"Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing."

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

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

"I am more the inspirational type of speller. I work on hunches rather than mere facts, and the result is sometimes open to criticism by purists."

"For a nation which has an almost evil reputation for bustle, bustle, bustle, and rush, rush, rush, we spend an enormous amount of time standing around in line in front of windows, just waiting."

"Go jogging? What, and get hit by a meteor?"

"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."

"I am pretty sure that, if you will be quite honest, you will admit that a good rousing sneeze, one that tears open your collar and throws your hair into your eyes, is really one of life's sensational pleasures."

"I can't quite define my aversion to asking questions of strangers. From snatches of family battles which I have heard drifting up from railway stations and street corners, I gather that there are a great many men who share my dislike for it, as well as an equal number of women who ... believe it to be the solution to most of this world's problems."

"I do most of my work sitting down; that's where I shine."

"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."

"I don't trust a bank that would lend money to such a poor risk."

"I have been told by hospital authorities that more copies of my works are left behind by departing patients than those of any other author."

"I must get out of these wet clothes and into a dry Martini."

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

"I know I'm drinking myself to a slow death, but then I'm in no hurry."

"I have tried to know absolutely nothing about a great many things, and I have succeeded fairly well."

"Most of the arguments to which I am party fall somewhat short of being impressive, knowing to the fact that neither I nor my opponent knows what we are talking about"

"It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up, because by that time I was too famous."

"In America there are two classes of travel: first class and with childen."

"Nothing is more responsible for the good old days than a bad memory."

"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."

"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."

"Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and, instead of bleeding, he sings."

"One of the easiest forms of pretense to break down is the pretense of enthusiasm for exotic foods. Just bring on the exotic foods."

"Tell us your phobias and we will tell you what you are afraid of."

"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."

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

"The naturalistic literature of this country has reached such a state that no family of characters is considered true to life which does not include at least two hypochondriacs, one sadist, and one old man who spills food down the front of his vest."

"The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him."

"The free-lance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps."

"There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don't."

"There is a note in the front of the volume saying that no public reading may be given without first getting the author's permission. It ought to be made much more difficult to do than that."

"There may be said to be two classes of people in the world; those who constantly divide the people of the world into two classes, and those who do not."