Quote

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.

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
Anagrams
Modern
Posts
Congestion
Known
Officials
Devised
Funny
Dues
Offices
Night
Table
Technically
Around
Tables
Really
Series
Regulations
Tried
Regulation
Office
Post

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Every boy should have two things: a dog and a mother who lets him have one
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Central Park is the grandiose symbol of the front yard each child in New York hasn't got.
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In Milwaukee last month a man died laughing over one of his own jokes. That's what makes it so tough for us outsiders. We have to fight home competition.
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Traveling with children corresponds roughly to traveling third class in Bulgaria.
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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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Streets full of water. Please Advise.
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The knocking out of a pipe can be made almost as important as the smoking of it, especially if there are nervous people in the room. A good, smart knock of a pipe against a tin wastebasket and you will have a neurasthenic out of his chair and into the window sash in no time.
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Anything can happen, but it usually doesn't.
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Sunday morning may be cheery enough, with its extra cup of coffee and litter of Sunday newspapers, but there is always hanging over it the ominous threat of 3 P.M., when the sun gets around to the back windows and life stops dead in its tracks.
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A man gets on a train with his little boy, and gives the conductor only one ticket. 'How old's your kid?' the conductor says, and the father says, 'He's four years old.' 'He looks at least twelve to me,' says the conductor. And the father says, 'Can I help it if he worries?
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The discovery of phobias by psychiatrists has done much to clear the atmosphere. Whereas in the old days a person would say: 'Let's get the heck out of here!' today she says: 'Let's get the heck out of here! I've got claustrophobia.
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I know I'm drinking myself to a slow death, but then I'm in no hurry.
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The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him.
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It was one of those plays in which all of the actors unfortunately enunciated very clearly.
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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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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.
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Most personal correspondence of today consists of letters the first half of which are given over to an indexed statement of why the writer hasn't written before, followed by one paragraph of small talk, with the remainder devoted to reasons why it is imperative that the letter be brought to a close.
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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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You won't find one fish in a million that has enough sense to come in when it rains.
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There is probably no more obnoxious class of citizen, taken end for end, than the returning vacationist.
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