8 Robert Benchley Quotes on Humor

Robert Benchley quotes on humor

3. A baby is shown sitting on the floor. He appears to be about a year and a half old. Incidentally, he is a very plain baby. Strewn about him on the floor are the toys that he has been playing with. There are a ball, a rattle, a ring, a doll, a bell and a pair of roller-skates. Evidently, the candidate is supposed to be aghast at the roller-skates in the possession of such a small child. The man who drew that picture had evidently never furnished playthings for a small child. I can imagine nothing that would delight a child of a year and a half more than a pair of roller-skates to chew and spin and hit himself in the face with. They could also be dropped on Daddy when Daddy was lying on the floor in an attempt to be sociable. Of all the toys arranged before the child, the roller-skates are the most logical. ... That is my great trouble in taking tests and examinations of any kind. I always want to argue with the examiner, because the examiner is always so obviously wrong.

5. There are two classes of travel - first class, and with children.

7. Nine-tenths of the value of a sense of humor in writing is not in the things it makes one write but in the things it keeps one from writing. It is especially valuable in this respect in serious writing, and no one without a sense of humor should ever write seriously. For without knowing what is funny, one is constantly in danger of being funny without knowing it.

10. The only cure for a real hangover is death.

11. There is no such place as Budapest. Perhaps you are thinking of Bucharest, and there is no such place as Bucharest, either.

12. 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.

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

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