Explore Quotes by Robert Benchley

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.

Opera is where a guy gets stabbed in the back, and instead of dying, he sings.

Defining and analyzing humor is a pastime of humorless people.

I can't bring myself to say, 'Well, I guess I'll be toddling along.' It isn't that I can't toddle. It's just that I can't guess I'll toddle.

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

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.

We are constantly being surprised that people did things well before we were born. We are constantly remarking on the fact that things are done well by people other than ourselves. "The Japanese are a remarkable little people," we say, as if we were doing them a favor. "He is an Arab, but you ought to hear him play the zither." Why "but"?

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.

Who said time machines haven't been built yet? They already exist. They're called books

The ideal age for a boy to own a dog is between forty-five and fifty.

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.

We call ourselves a free nation, and yet we let ourselves be told what cabs we can and can't take by a man at a hotel door, simply because he has a drum major's uniform on.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

There seems to be no lengths to which humorless people will not go to analyze humor. It seems to worry them.

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.