Quote

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.

Robert Benchley

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Robert Benchley
Age: 56 †
Born: 1889
Born: September 15
Died: 1945
Died: November 21
Actor
Humorist
Journalist
Screenwriter
Worcester
Massachusetts
World
Turn
Dross
Turns
Joys
Money
Casting
Hands
Fifteen
Power
Beginning
Firsts
Realize
Everything
Joy
First
Realizing

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A man may take care of a furnace for twenty-five years and still forget to duck his head when he starts going down the cellar stairs.
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What is to be done with people who can't read a Sunday paper without messing it all up?... Show me a Sunday paper which has been left in a condition fit only for kite flying, and I will show you an antisocial and dangerous character who has left it that way.
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If Shakespeare were alive today and writing comedy for the movies, he would be the head-liner for the Mack Sennett studios.
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Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing.
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People who begin sentences with I may be old-fashioned but-- are usually not only old-fashioned but wrong. I never thought the time would come when I should catch myself leading off with that crack. But I feel it coming on right now.
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There are several ways to apportion the family income, all of them unsatisfactory.
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One of the easiest forms of pretense to break down is the pretense of enthusiasm for exotic foods. Just bring on the exotic foods.
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This congestion in the post offices is due to what are technically known as regulations but what are really a series of acrostics and anagrams devised by some officials who got around a table one night and tried to be funny.
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I never liked bananas much anyway. Two-thirds of the way down even one banana I am willing to concede defeat smilingly and give the rest to the nearest monkey.
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This is a test. It is only a test. Had it been an actual job, you would have received raises, promotions, and other signs of appreciation.
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All laughter is a muscular rigidity spasmodically relieved by involuntary twitching.
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Except for an occasional heart attack I feel as young as I ever did.
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A child of three cannot raise its chubby fist to its mouth to remove a piece of carpet which it is through eating, without being made the subject of a psychological seminar of child-welfare experts, and written up, along with five hundred other children of three who have put their hands to their mouths for the same reason.
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The art of cursing people seems to have lost its tang since the old days when a good malediction took four deep breaths to deliverand sent the outfielders scurrying toward the fence to field.
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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.
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You want to go easy on the suicide stuff - first thing you know, you'll ruin your health.
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Work is a form of nervousness.
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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.
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Anything can happen, but it usually doesn't.
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In preparing the soil for planting, you will need several tools. Dynamite would be a beautiful thing to use, but it would have a tendency to get the dirt into the front-hall and track up the stairs.
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