Quote

All laughter is a muscular rigidity spasmodically relieved by involuntary twitching.

Robert Benchley

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Robert Benchley
Age: 56 †
Born: 1889
Born: September 15
Died: 1945
Died: November 21
Actor
Humorist
Journalist
Screenwriter
Worcester
Massachusetts
Muscular
Rigidity
Involuntary
Relieved
Laughter
Twitching

More quotes by Robert Benchley

Image
Except for an occasional heart attack I feel as young as I ever did.
Robert Benchley
Image
I have often wondered how they manage to get return envelopes which miss, by one-quarter of an inch, fitting the blank you are supposed to return. They say, Please fill out and return the enclosed envelope, and the enclosed envelope is always one-quarter of an inch too small.
Robert Benchley
Image
A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance of turning around three times before lying down.
Robert Benchley
Image
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.
Robert Benchley
Image
Every boy should have two things: a dog and a mother who lets him have one
Robert Benchley
Image
You want to go easy on the suicide stuff - first thing you know, you'll ruin your health.
Robert Benchley
Image
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
Image
Anything can happen, but it usually doesn't.
Robert Benchley
Image
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.
Robert Benchley
Image
One of the easiest forms of pretense to break down is the pretense of enthusiasm for exotic foods. Just bring on the exotic foods.
Robert Benchley
Image
Streets flooded. Please advise.
Robert Benchley
Image
My only solution for the problem of habitual accidents is to stay in bed all day. Even then, there is always the chance that you will fall out.
Robert Benchley
Image
Sheer madness is, of course, the highest possible brow in humor.
Robert Benchley
Image
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.
Robert Benchley
Image
There are several ways to apportion the family income, all of them unsatisfactory.
Robert Benchley
Image
You won't find one fish in a million that has enough sense to come in when it rains.
Robert Benchley
Image
In America there are two classes of travel - first class, and with children.
Robert Benchley
Image
A real hangover is nothing to try out family remedies on. The only cure for a real hangover is death.
Robert Benchley
Image
If there is a streak of ham anywhere in an actor, Shakespeare will bring it out.
Robert Benchley
Image
There is no doubt that every healthy, normal boy...should own a dog at some time in his life, preferably between the ages of forty-five and fifty.
Robert Benchley