198 Quotes by Robert Benchley

I have tried to know absolutely nothing about a great many things, and I have succeeded fairly well.

If only those old walls could talk...how boring they would be.

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.

What is the disease which manifests itself in an inability to leave a party--any party at all--until it is all over and the lightsare being put out?... I suppose that part of this mania for staying is due to a fear that, if I go, something good will happen and I'll miss it. Somebody might do card tricks, or shoot somebody else.

Tell us your phobias and we will tell you what you are afraid of.

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

A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance of turning around three times before lying down.

When we think back to our forefathers, with their sedentary lives of forest-chopping, railroad-building, fortune-founding, their fox-hunting and Indian taming, their prancing about in the mazurka and the polka, with their coattails flying and their bustles bouncing, to say nothing of their all-day sessions with the port and straight bourbon,... we must realize that we are a nation, not of neurasthenics, but of sissies and slow-motion sports.

We are constantly being surprised that people did things well before we were born.