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I Can't Quite Define My Aversion To Asking Questions Of Strangers. From Snatches Of Family Battles Which I Have Heard Drifting Up From Railway Stations And Street Corners, I Gather That There Are A Great Many Men Who Share My Dislike For It, As Well As An Equal Number Of Women Who ... Believe It To Be The Solution To Most Of This World's Problems.

-Robert Benchley

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I Can't Quite Define

Robert Benchley

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I Can't Quite Define My Aversion To Asking Questions Of Strangers. From Snatches Of Family Battles Which I Have Heard Drifting Up From Railway Stations And Street Corners, I Gather That There Are A Great Many Men Who Share My Dislike For It, As Well As An Equal Number Of Women Who ... Believe It To Be The Solution To Most Of This World's Problems.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

Sheer Madness Is, Of Course, The Highest Possible Brow In Humor.

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.

All Laughter Is A Muscular Rigidity Spasmodically Relieved By Involuntary Twitching.

One Cubic Foot Less Of Space And It Would Have Constituted Adultery.

Defining And Analyzing Humor Is A Pastime Of Humorless People.

The Pencil Sharpener Is About As Far As I Have Ever Got In Operating A Complicated Piece Of Machinery With Any Success.

Most Personal Correspondence Of Today Consists Of Letters The First Half Of Which Are Given Over To An Indexed Statement Of Why The Writer Hasn't Written Before, Followed By One Paragraph Of Small Talk, With The Remainder Devoted To Reasons Why It Is Imperative That The Letter Be Brought To A Close.

I Have Often Wondered How They Manage To Get Return Envelopes Which Miss, By One-quarter Of An Inch, Fitting The Blank You Are Supposed To Return. They Say, "please Fill Out And Return The Enclosed Envelope," And The Enclosed Envelope Is Always One-quarter Of An Inch Too Small.

Other Men Wear White Suits In Summer And It Doesn't Seem To Bother Them. But My White Suit Seems To Be A Little Whiter Than Theirs. I Think Also That It May Have Something Written On The Back Of It, Although I Can't Find It When I Take The Suit Off.

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.

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.

It Was One Of Those Plays In Which All Of The Actors Unfortunately Enunciated Very Clearly.

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.

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.

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.

Anything Can Happen, But It Usually Doesn't.

Anything Can Happen

Who Said Time Machines Haven't Been Built Yet? They Already Exist. They're Called Books

Tell Us Your Phobias And We Will Tell You What You Are Afraid Of

It Has Always Seemed To Me That The Most Difficult Part Of Building A Bridge Would Be The Start.

Breaking The Ice In The Pitcher Seems To Be A Feature Of The Early Lives Of All Great Men.

I Suppose That One Of The Psychological Principles Of Advertising Is To So Hammer The Name Of Your Product Into The Mind Of The Timid Buyer That When He Is Confronted With A Brusk Demand For An Order He Can't Think Of Anything Else To Say, Whether He Wants It Or Not.

Streets Flooded. Please Advise.

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.

Anyone Can Do Any Amount Of Work, Provided It Isn't The Work He Is Supposed Be Doing At That Moment.

Procrastination

I Have Tried To Know Absolutely Nothing About A Great Many Things, And I Have Succeeded Fairly Well.

An Ardent Supporter Of The Hometown Team Should Go To A Game Prepared To Take Offense, No Matter What Happens.

A Boy Can Learn A Lot From A Dog: Obedience, Loyalty, And The Importance Of Turning Around Three Times Before Lying Down.

Sunday Morning May Be Cheery Enough, With Its Extra Cup Of Coffee And Litter Of Sunday Newspapers, But There Is Always Hanging Over It The Ominous Threat Of 3 P.m., When The Sun Gets Around To The Back Windows And Life Stops Dead In Its Tracks.

Why Don't You Get Out Of That Wet Coat And Into A Dry Martini?

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.

For Most Visitors To Manhattan, Both Foreign And Domestic, New York Is The Shrine Of The Good Time. "i Don't See How You Stand It," They Often Say To The Native New Yorker Who Has Been Sitting Up Past His Bedtime For A Week In An Attempt To Tire His Guest Out. "it's All Right For A Week Or So, But Give Me The Little Old Home Town When It Comes To Living." And, Under His Breath, The New Yorker Endorses The Transfer And Wonders Himself How He Stands It.

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.

I Am Both A Public And A Private School Boy Myself, Having Always Changed Schools Just As The Class In English In The New School Was Taking Up Silas Marner, With The Result That It Was The Only Book In The English Language That I Knew Until I Was Eighteen--but, Boy, Did I Know Silas Marner!

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.

There Is No Such Place As Budapest. Perhaps You Are Thinking Of Bucharest, And There Is No Such Place As Bucharest, Either.

England And America Should Scrap Cricket And Baseball And Come Up With A New Game That They Both Can Play. Like Baseball, For Example.

England And America

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.

Next To An Old-fashioned Church Social, Or Possibly A Monster Bridge Party, There Is No Buzz Which Can Equal The Sibilant Buzz Ofa Matinée.

There Is No Doubt That Every Healthy, Normal Boy...should Own A Dog At Some Time In His Life, Preferably Between The Ages Of Forty-five And Fifty.

In A House Where There Are Small Children The Bathroom Soon Takes On The Appearance Of The Old Curiosity Shop.

Except For An Occasional Heart Attack I Feel As Young As I Ever Did.

You Want To Go Easy On The Suicide Stuff - First Thing You Know, You'll Ruin Your Health.

The Ideal Age For A Boy To Own A Dog Is Between Forty-five And Fifty.

Drawing On My Fine Command Of The English Language, I Said Nothing.

Drinking Makes Such Fools Of People, And People Are Such Fools To Begin With That It's Compounding A Felony.

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.

Streets Full Of Water. Please Advise.

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.

I Do Most Of My Work Sitting Down; That's Where I Shine.

If You Are One Of The Hewers Of Wood And Drawers Of Small Weekly Paychecks, Your Letters Will Have To Contain Some Few Items Of News Or They Will Be Accounted Dry Stuff.... But If You Happen To Be Of A Literary Turn Of Mind, Or Are, In Any Way, Likely To Become Famous, You May Settle Down To An Afternoon Of Letter-writing On Nothing More Sprightly In The Way Of News Than The Shifting Of The Wind From South To South-east.

[reviewing The New York City Telephone Directory] But It Is The Opinion Of The Present Reviewer That The Weakness Of Plot Is Due To The Great Number Of Characters Which Clutter Up The Pages. The Russian School Is Responsible For This.

The Only Cure For A Real Hangover Is Death.

One Of The Great Natural Phenomena Is The Way In Which A Tube Of Toothpaste Suddenly Empties Itself When It Hears That You Are Planning A Trip, So That When You Come To Pack It Is Just A Twisted Shell Of Its Former Self, With Not Even A Cubic Millimeter Left To Be Squeezed Out.

I Can't Quite Define My Aversion To Asking Questions Of Strangers. From Snatches Of Family Battles Which I Have Heard Drifting Up From Railway Stations And Street Corners, I Gather That There Are A Great Many Men Who Share My Dislike For It, As Well As An Equal Number Of Women Who ... Believe It To Be The Solution To Most Of This World's Problems.

We Are Constantly Being Surprised That People Did Things Well Before We Were Born.

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.

It Must Be A Source Of Great Chagrin To Those In Charge To Think Of So Many People Being Able To Stick A Stamp On A Letter And Drop It In A Mail Box Without Any Trouble Or Suffering At All. They Are Probably Working On A System This Very Minute, Trying To Devise Some Way In Which The Public Can Be Made To Fill Out A Blank, Stand In Line, Consult Some Underling Who Will Refer Him To A Superior, And Then Be Made To Black Up With Burned Cork Before They Can Mail A Letter.

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.

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.

If Mr. Einstein Doesn't Like The Natural Laws Of The Universe, Let Him Go Back To Where He Came From.

The Great Arizona Desert Is Full Of The Bleaching Bones Of People Who Waited For Me To Start Something.

The Wise Man Thinks Once Before He Speaks Twice.

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.

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.

You Won't Find One Fish In A Million That Has Enough Sense To Come In When It Rains.

The Biggest Obstacle To Professional Writing Is The Necessity For Changing A Typewriter Ribbon.

There Seems To Be No Lengths To Which Humorless People Will Not Go To Analyze Humor. It Seems To Worry Them.

If Only Those Old Walls Could Talk...how Boring They Would Be.

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.

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.

The Surest Way To Make A Monkey Of A Man Is To Quote Him.

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.

Even Nowadays A Man Can't Step Up And Kill A Woman Without Feeling Just A Bit Unchivalrous.

There May Be Said To Be Two Classes Of People In The World; Those Who Constantly Divide The People Of The World Into Two Classes And Those Who Do Not.

One Of The Easiest Forms Of Pretense To Break Down Is The Pretense Of Enthusiasm For Exotic Foods. Just Bring On The Exotic Foods.

I Can Remember The Day When All That A Professor Was Supposed To Do Was To Mark "c Minus" On Students' Examination Papers, Then Gohome To Tea. Nowadays They Seem To Feel That They Must Know Just How Much We (outside The University) Eat, What We Do With Our Spare Time, And How We Like Our Eggs.

The Free-lance Writer Is A Man Who Is Paid Per Piece Or Per Word Or Perhaps.

If There Is A Streak Of Ham Anywhere In An Actor, Shakespeare Will Bring It Out.

If Shakespeare Were Alive Today And Writing Comedy For The Movies, He Would Be The Head-liner For The Mack Sennett Studios.

Charlemagne Either Died Or Was Born Or Did Something With The Holy Roman Empire In 800.

There Are Two Ways To Travel, First Class Or With Children.

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.

A Man Of Forty Today Has Nothing To Worry Him But Falling Hair, Inability To Button The Top Button, Failing Vision, Shortness Of Breath, A Tendency Of The Collar To Shut Off All Breathing, Trembling Of The Kidneys To Whatever Tune The Orchestra Is Playing, And A General Sense Of Giddiness When The Matter Of Rent Is Brought Up. Forty Is Life's Golden Age.

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.

Dachshunds Are Ideal Dogs For Small Children, As They Are Already Stretched And Pulled To Such A Length That The Child Cannot Do Much Harm One Way Or The Other.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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. The Average Man Ought To Be Allowed A Quotation Of No Less Than Three Sentences, One To Make His Statement And Two To Explain What He Meant. Ralph Waldo Emerson Was About The Only One Who Could Stand Having His Utterances Broken Up Into Sentence Quotations, And Every Once In A While Even He Doesn’t Sound So Sensible In Short Snatches.

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.

It Is Rather To Be Chosen Than Great Riches, Unless I Have Omitted Something From The Quotation.

There Are Several Ways To Apportion The Family Income, All Of Them Unsatisfactory.

Who Has Not Wished That His Host Would Come Out Frankly At The Beginning Of The Visit And State, In No Uncertain Terms, The Rulesand Preferences Of The Household In Such Matters As The Breakfast Hour? And Who Has Not Sounded Out His Guest To Find Out What He Likes In The Regulation Of His Diet And Modus Vivendi (mode Of Living)?

I Can't Bring Myself To Say, 'well, I Guess I'll Be Toddling Along.' It Isn't That I Can't Toddle. It's Just That I Can't Guess I'll Toddle.

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.

Birds Which Are The Same Color As The Foliage In Which They Nest Are Less Likely To Be Disturbed By Other Birds Who Want To Drop In And Chat, And Therefore Last Longer.

There Is Probably No More Obnoxious Class Of Citizen, Taken End For End, Than The Returning Vacationist.

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.

My Only Solution For The Problem Of Habitual Accidents Is To Stay In Bed All Day. Even Then, There Is Always The Chance That You Will Fall Out.

Every Boy Should Have Two Things: A Dog And A Mother Who Lets Him Have One

I Can Get Dressed Earlier In The Evening With Every Intention Of Going To A Dance At Midnight, But Somehow After The Theatre The Thing To Do Seems To Be Either To Go To Bed Or Sit Around Somewhere. It Doesn't Seem Possible That Somewhere People Can Be Expecting You At An Hour Like That.

If You Think That You Have Caught A Cold, Call In A Good Doctor. Call In Three Good Doctors And Play Bridge.

Next To A Shot Of Some Good, Habit-forming Narcotic, There Is Nothing Like Travelling Alone As A 'builder-upper.

We Are Constantly Being Surprised That People Did Things Well Before We Were Born. We Are Constantly Remarking On The Fact That Things Are Done Well By People Other Than Ourselves. "the Japanese Are A Remarkable Little People," We Say, As If We Were Doing Them A Favor. "he Is An Arab, But You Ought To Hear Him Play The Zither." Why "but"?

The English Language May Hold A More Disagreeable Combination Of Words Than "the Doctor Will See You Now." I Am Willing To Concede Something To The Phrase "have You Anything To Say Before The Current Is Turned On?" That May Be Worse For The Moment, But It Doesn't Last So Long. For Continued, Unmitigating Depression, I Know Nothing To Equal "the Doctor Will See You Now." But I'm Not Narrow-minded About It. I'm Willing To Consider Other Possibilities.

The Way To Go To The Circus, However, Is With Someone Who Has Seen Perhaps One Theatrical Performance Before In His Life And That In The High School Hall... The Scales Of Sophistication Are Struck From Your Eyes And You See In The Circus A Gathering Of Men And Women Who Are Able To Do Things As A Matter Of Course Which You Couldn't Do If Your Life Depended On It.

New York - The City Where The People From Oshkosh Look At The People From Dubuque In The Next Theater Seats And Say "these New Yorkers Don't Dress Any Better Than We Do.

The Discovery Of Phobias By Psychiatrists Has Done Much To Clear The Atmosphere. Whereas In The Old Days A Person Would Say: 'let's Get The Heck Out Of Here!' Today She Says: 'let's Get The Heck Out Of Here! I've Got Claustrophobia.

In America There Are Two Classes Of Travel - First Class, And With Children.

If You Look At Eggs, You Will See That Each One Is Almost Round But Not Quite ... Nature's Way Of Distinguishing Eggs From Large Golf Balls.

Central Park Is The Grandiose Symbol Of The Front Yard Each Child In New York Hasn't Got.

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.

My First Big Mistake Was Made When, In A Moment Of Weakness, I Consented To Learn The Game; For A Man Who Can Frankly Say "i Do Not Play Bridge" Is Allowed To Go Over In The Corner And Run The Pianola By Himself, While The Poor Neophyte, No Matter How Much He May Protest That He Isn't "at All A Good Player, In Fact I'm Perfectly Rotten," Is Never Believed, But Dragged Into A Game Where It Is Discovered, Too Late, That He Spoke The Truth.

A Dog Teaches A Boy Fidelity, Perseverance, And To Turn Around Three Times Before Lying Down.

Work Is A Form Of Nervousness.

She Sleeps Alone At Last.

There Are Several Natural Phenomena Which I Shall Have To Have Explained To Me Before I Can Keep On Going As A Resident Member Ofthe Human Race. One Is The Metamorphosis Which Hats And Suits Undergo Exactly One Week After Their Purchase, Whereby They Are Changed From Smart, Intensely Becoming Articles Of Apparel Into Something Children Use When They Want To "dress Up Like Daddy.

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.

I Haven't Been Abroad In So Long That I Almost Speak English Without An Accent Now.

Traveling With Children Corresponds Roughly To Traveling Third Class In Bulgaria.

I Know I'm Drinking Myself To A Slow Death, But Then I'm In No Hurry.

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.

I Have Been Told By Hospital Authorities That More Copies Of My Works Are Left Behind By Departing Patients Than Those Of Any Other Author.

But Ice-crunching And Loud Gum-chewing, Together With Drumming On Tables, And Whistling The Same Tune 70 Times In Succession, Because They Indicate An Indifference On The Part Of The Perpetrator To The Rest Of The World In General, Are Not Only Registered On The Delicate Surfaces Of The Brain But Eat Little Holes In It Until It Finally Collapses Or Blows Up.

This Is A Test. It Is Only A Test. Had It Been An Actual Job, You Would Have Received Raises, Promotions, And Other Signs Of Appreciation.

Consider The Number Of Young People All Over The World Who Are Getting Married, Day In And Day Out, For No Other Reason Than Thatsomeone Of The Opposite Sex Looks Well In A Green Jersey Or Sings Baritone, And Then Tell Me That Divorce Has Reached Menacing Proportions. The Surface Of Divorce Has Not Even Been Scratched Yet.

There Is Probably Not More Than One Hundred Dollars In Cash In Circulation Today. That Is, If You Were To Call In All The Bills And Silver And Gold In The Country At Noon Tomorrow And Pile Them On The Table, You Would Find That You Had Just About One Hundred Dollars, With Perhaps Several Canadian Pennies And A Few Peppermint Life Savers.

A Freelance Is One Who Gets Paid By The Word -- Per Piece Or Perhaps.

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