198 Quotes by Robert Benchley

Great literature must spring from an upheaval in the author’s soul. If that upheaval is not present then it must come from the works of any other author which happens to be handy and easily adapted.

I know I’m drinking myself to a slow death, but then I’m in no hurry.

Who said time machines haven’t been built yet? They already exist. They’re called books.

If Mr. Einstein doesn’t like the natural laws of the universe, let him go back to where he came from.

We call ourselves a free nation, and yet we let ourselves be told what cabs we can and can’t take by a man at a hotel door, simply because he has a drum major’s uniform on.

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.

Why don’t you get out of that wet coat and into a dry martini?

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.

I once heard a woman laugh at that most tragic moment in all drama, the off-stage shot in “The Wild Duck,” and I afterward had her killed, so there will be no more of that out of her.