Quote

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.

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
Right
Sentences
Feel
Begin
Feels
Usually
Fashioned
Never
Coming
Crack
Would
Wrong
Cracks
Time
Thought
Leading
People
May
Catch
Come
Aging

More quotes by Robert Benchley

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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.
Robert Benchley
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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.
Robert Benchley
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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.
Robert Benchley
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Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing.
Robert Benchley
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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.
Robert Benchley
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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.
Robert Benchley
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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.
Robert Benchley
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In America there are two classes of travel - first class, and with children.
Robert Benchley
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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.
Robert Benchley
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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?
Robert Benchley
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One cubic foot less of space and it would have constituted adultery.
Robert Benchley
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Tell us your phobias and we will tell you what you are afraid of
Robert Benchley
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If Mr. Einstein doesn't like the natural laws of the universe, let him go back to where he came from.
Robert Benchley
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A freelance is one who gets paid by the word -- per piece or perhaps.
Robert Benchley
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The only cure for a real hangover is death.
Robert Benchley
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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.
Robert Benchley
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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.
Robert Benchley
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I once heard of a murderer who propped his two victims up against a chess board in sporting attitudes and was able to get as far as Seattle before his crime was discovered.
Robert Benchley
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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.
Robert Benchley
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Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed be doing at that moment.
Robert Benchley