Bennett Cerf
Bennett Cerf
Bennett Alfred Cerfwas an American publisher, one of the founders of American publishing firm Random House. Cerf was also known for his own compilations of jokes and puns, for regular personal appearances lecturing across the United States, and for his television appearances in the panel game show What's My Line?...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth25 May 1898
CountryUnited States of America
hurt work-out people
Everybody was being decent, and when people are decent, thing work out for everybody. That has been my theory all through life. If you're making money, let the other fellow make it too. If somebody's getting hurt, it's bad, but if you can work a thing out so that everybody profits that's the ideal business.
people littles rooms
I can't say this too often - that a little humor can make life worth living. That has always been my credo. Somebody once asked me, 'What would you like your epitaph to be?' I've always said that I'd like it to be: He left people a little happier than they were when he came into the room.
independent tvs urges
TV's sameness has destroyed many things, such as the American urge toward independent thought.
people would-be television
There is a mass of people, we might as well admit, who if they weren't watching television, would be doing absolutely nothing else.
differences effectiveness ghost-stories
The fundamental difference between the mystery story and the ghost story is the fact that a mystery demands a solution for its effectiveness; a ghost story is necessarily unsolvable; the reader must be willing to accept the fact that nothing is proved.
book america facts
The fact that we don't read more books in America can be traced squarely to the fact that we have newspapers that are about a hundred times as big as the newspapers anywhere else.
together television waitress
Television, I love it, everything that happened before television lumped together, never caused folks to turn on a street to stare at me, or waitresses to ask for autographs.
fog ships politician
Politicians are like ships: noisiest when lost in a fog.
country book matter
One of the greatest threats facing book publishing, and the entire country for that matter, is censorship.
teenager book school
Most of the things that are supposed to be so objectionable in books are things that every teenager, in the United States, not only knows, but has talked about at length in school, or on the way home from school.
fun thinking people
I think it's become fashionable for the snobbish egghead today to make fun of television. I've heard many people, boast, "I would never have a television set in my house," well, these people are fools.
intelligent thinking self
I think the right to read, is one of our inherent rights, and I think that people in America today are intelligent enough to decide for themselves what they want to read. Without being told, by self-appointed people, you must not read this, or you cannot read this.
crazy fame
Fame - anyone who says he doesn't like it is crazy
beautiful laughing world
For me, a hearty "belly laugh" is one of the beautiful sounds in the world.