Robert Benchley
Robert Benchley
Robert Charles Benchleywas an American humorist best known for his work as a newspaper columnist and film actor. From his beginnings at the Harvard Lampoon while attending Harvard University, through his many years writing essays and articles for Vanity Fair and The New Yorker and his acclaimed short films, Benchley's style of humor brought him respect and success during his life, from New York City and his peers at the Algonquin Round Table to contemporaries in the burgeoning film industry...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth15 September 1889
CityWorcester, MA
CountryUnited States of America
The wise man thinks once before he speaks twice.
The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him.
You might think that after thousands of years of coming up too soon and getting frozen, the crocus family would have had a little sense knocked into it.
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.
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.
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.
There is no such place as Budapest. Perhaps you are thinking of Bucharest, and there is no such place as Bucharest, either.
It must be a source of great chagrin to those in charge to think of so many people being able to stick a stamp on a letter and drop it in a mail box without any trouble or suffering at all. They are probably working on a system this very minute, trying to devise some way in which the public can be made to fill out a blank, stand in line, consult some underling who will refer him to a superior, and then be made to black up with burned cork before they can mail a letter.
If you think that you have caught a cold, call in a good doctor. Call in three good doctors and play bridge.
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.
Most of the arguments to which I am a party fall somewhat short of being impressive, owing to the fact that neither I nor my opponent knows what we are talking about.
Tell us your phobias and we will tell you what you are afraid of.
It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous
Then it's merrily, merrily, merrily, whoa! To the old gray church they come and go, Some to be married and some to be buried And Old Robin has gone for the mail