Benchley on Benchley - a website by Nat Benchley

~ Day followed day in Paris – a typically French trick.

~ She was Lillie, the beautiful daughter of her only father.

~ Maxims from the Chinese:

– The wise man thinks once before he speaks.

– A wish without the giver is bare.

– It is rather to be chosen than great riches, unless I have omitted something from the quotation.

– The wise man moves fast, yet a great many times it is hard to catch him. This is because he has no soul. This is because he lives up there with all those radicals.

– Too much wisdom gets on the wise man’s nerves.

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

~ In America there are two classes of travel – First Class and with children. Traveling with children corresponds roughly to traveling third class in Bulgaria.

~ 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.”

~ Drawing on my fine command of the English language,…I said nothing. [In response to the person at Averell Harriman’s house who said, “Say something funny, Mr. Benchley.”]

~ There is no such place as Budapest. Perhaps you are thinking of Bucharest,…and there is no such place as Bucharest, either.

~ When I started what you call “my career,” I wore a size 14½ collar, did exercises to develop my chest, and had never had a drink. You ask if I feel different now? [In response to a reporter who asked if he felt any different now that he was a “success” than he did when he started his career.]

~ I heckle parlor game players from the sidelines. I throw stones and spit at the players. Hence the nickname “Sweet Old Bob,” or sometimes just the initials.

~ In this chart, we have a pyramid representing the Curtis circulation: eleven million people, of whom 25,000 are able to lift the paper high enough to read it. We come down here to a circle showing consumer demand, 49%; Curtis quota, 48%; and here is Kansas, which was admitted as a free state in 1856.

~ A freelance writer is one who is paid per word, per page or perhaps.

~“Surprise!…is not the name for the emotion with which I am overcome at being just now called upon to address you at this meeting. It is nothing short of confusion.”