Top 100 Robert Benchley Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Work is a form of nervousness.”

— Robert Benchley

52. “Streets flooded. Please advise.”

— Robert Benchley

53. “The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. That remark in itself wouldn’t make any sense if quoted as it stands.”

— Robert Benchley

54. “But compared with the task of selecting a piece of French pastry held by an impatient waiter a move in chess is like reaching for a salary check in its demand on the contemplative faculties.”

— Robert Benchley

55. “The naturalistic literature of this country has reached such a state that no family of characters is considered true to life whichdoes not include at least two hypochondriacs, one sadist, and one old man who spills food down the front of his vest.”

— Robert Benchley

56. “It was one of those plays in which all of the actors unfortunately enunciated very clearly.”

— Robert Benchley

57. “I do most of my work sitting down; that’s where I shine.”

— Robert Benchley

58. “I don’t trust a bank that would lend money to such a poor risk.”

— Robert Benchley

59. “You want to go easy on the suicide stuff – first thing you know, you’ll ruin your health.”

— Robert Benchley

60. “Most of the arguments to which I am party fall somewhat short of being impressive, owing to the fact that neither I nor my opponent knows what we are talking about.”

— Robert Benchley

61. “If Shakespeare were alive today and writing comedy for the movies, he would be the head-liner for the Mack Sennett studios.”

— Robert Benchley

62. “Even nowadays a man can’t step up and kill a woman without feeling just a bit unchivalrous.”

— Robert Benchley

63. “Sheer madness is, of course, the highest possible brow in humor.”

— Robert Benchley

64. “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

65. “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

66. “I never liked bananas much anyway. Two-thirds of the way down even one banana I am willing to concede defeat smilingly and give the rest to the nearest monkey.”

— Robert Benchley

67. “I haven’t been abroad in so long that I almost speak English without an accent now.”

— Robert Benchley

68. “An ardent supporter of the hometown team should go to a game prepared to take offense, no matter what happens.”

— Robert Benchley

69. “Except for an occasional heart attack I feel as young as I ever did.”

— Robert Benchley

70. “One cubic foot less of space and it would have constituted adultery.”

— Robert Benchley

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

— Robert Benchley

72. “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.”

— Robert Benchley

73. “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.”

— Robert Benchley

74. “I am pretty sure that, if you will be quite honest, you will admit that a good rousing sneeze, one that tears open your collar and throws your hair into your eyes, is really one of life’s sensational pleasures.”

— Robert Benchley

75. “You might think that after thousands of years of coming up too soon and getting frozen, the crocus family would have had a little sense knocked into it.”

— Robert Benchley

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

— Robert Benchley

77. “Nothing makes a man feel older than to hear a band coming up the street and not to have the impulse to rush downstairs and out on to the sidewalk.”

— Robert Benchley

78. “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

79. “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

80. “It is one of the most discouraging experiences I have ever had, not forgetting the time when I winked at the Queen Mother in London once.”

— Robert Benchley

81. “I never knew anyone yet who got up at six who did anything more useful between that time and breakfast than banging a tennis ballup against the side of the house, waiting for the more civilized members of the party to get up.”

— Robert Benchley

82. “Go jogging? And get hit by a meteor?”

— Robert Benchley

83. “Next to a shot of some good, habit-forming narcotic, there is nothing like travelling alone as a ’builder-upper.”

— Robert Benchley

84. “There seems to be a common strain of miserliness in the American people when it comes to throwing away toothpaste tubes which havea little left in the bottom.”

— Robert Benchley

85. “A great many people have come up to me and asked how I manage to get so much work done and still keep looking so dissipated.”

— Robert Benchley

86. “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.”

— Robert Benchley

87. “I am more the inspirational type of speller. I work on hunches rather than mere facts, and the result is sometimes open to criticism by purists.”

— Robert Benchley

88. “The biggest obstacle to professional writing is the necessity for changing a typewriter ribbon.”

— Robert Benchley

89. “There is probably no moment more appalling than that in which the tongue comes suddenly upon the ragged edge of a space from which the old familiar filling has disappeared.”

— Robert Benchley

90. “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

91. “The problem of what to wear while lolling about the house on a Sunday afternoon is becoming more and more acute as the fashions in lolling garments change. The American home is in danger of taking on the appearance of an Oriental bordello.”

— Robert Benchley

92. “All that a spectator gets out of the game is fresh air, the comical articles in his program, the sight of twenty-two young men rushing about in mysterious formations, and whatever he brought in his flask.”

— Robert Benchley

93. “In a house where there are small children the bathroom soon takes on the appearance of the Old Curiosity Shop.”

— Robert Benchley

94. “One of the chief duties of the fan is to engage in arguments with the man behind him. This department of the game has been allowed to run down fearfully.”

— Robert Benchley

95. “The Ultimate Day really begins the night before, when you sit up until one o’clock trying to get things into trunk and bags. This is when you discover the well-known fact that summer air swells articles to twice or three times their original size.”

— Robert Benchley

96. “Anyone who tries to keep track of what is happening in China is going to end up by wearing all the skin of his left ear from twirling around on it.”

— Robert Benchley

97. “The ideal age for a boy to own a dog is between forty-five and fifty.”

— Robert Benchley

98. “Infants need the most sleep, and, what is more, get it. Stunning them with a soft, padded hammer is the best way to insure their getting it at the right times.”

— Robert Benchley

99. “England and America should scrap cricket and baseball and come up with a new game that they both can play. Like baseball, for example.”

— Robert Benchley

100. “The most common of all antagonisms arises from a man’s taking a seat beside you on the train, a seat to which he is completely entitled.”

— Robert Benchley