Robert Byrne - The 2,548 Best Things Anybody Ever Said

You call this a script? Give me a couple of 5,000-dollar-a-week writers and Ill write it myself. Movie producer Joe Pasternak I do most of my writing sitting down. Thats where I shine. Robert Benchley (18891945) When in doubt, have two guys come through the door with guns. Raymond Chandler (18881959) Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end. Igor Stravinsky (18821971) You want something by Bach? Which one, Johann Sebastian or Jacques Offen? Victor Borge (19092000) Even Bach comes down to the basic suck, blow, suck, suck, blow. Mouth organist Larry Adler Classical music is the kind we keep thinking will turn into a tune. Kin Hubbard (18681930) Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian. H. L. L.

Mencken (18801956)

I tried to resist his overtures, but he plied me with symphonies, quartettes, chamber music, and cantatas. S. J. Perelman (19041979) Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung. Voltaire (16941778) Massenet
Never wrote a Mass in A.
Itd have been just too bad
If he had. Jean Sibelius (18651957) Music played at weddings always reminds me of the music played for soldiers before they go into battle. Heinrich Heine (17971856) I dont know anything about music. Heinrich Heine (17971856) I dont know anything about music.

In my line you dont have to. Elvis Presley (19351977)

Hell is full of musical amateurs. George Bernard Shaw (18561950) No sane man will dance. Cicero (10643 B.C.) Rock and roll is the hamburger that ate the world. Peter York Use an accordion, go to jail! Thats the law! Bumper sticker You can make a killing as a playwright in America, but you cant make a living. Joseph L. Joseph L.

Mankiewicz (19091992)

Actresses will happen in the best regulated families. Oliver Herford (18631935) My tears stuck in their little ducts, refusing to be jerked. Peter Stack in a movie review His performance is so wooden you want to spray him with Liquid Pledge. John Stark in a movie review Working in the theater has a lot in common with unemployment. Arthur Gingold Only in show business could a guy with a C-minus average be considered an intellectual. Jean Kerr Its always easier to see a show you dont like the second time because you know it ends. Walter Slezak (19021983) Hell is a half-filled auditorium. Robert Frost (18741963) A critic is a man who knows the way but cant drive the car. Kenneth Tynan (19271980) Hollywood is a place where they place you under contract instead of under observation. Walter Winchell (18971972) The Hollywood tradition I like best is called sucking up to the stars. Johnny Carson Hello, he lied. Don Carpenter quoting a Hollywood agent An associate producer is the only guy in Hollywood who will associate with a producer. Fred Allen (18941956) The dead actor requested in his will that his body be cremated and ten percent of his ashes thrown in his agents face. Unknown It was like passing the scene of a highway accident and being relieved to learn that nobody had been seriously injured. Martin Cruz Smith on being asked how he liked the movie version of his novel Gorky Park If you want to make it in show business, get the hell out of Oregon. Advice from Sophie Tucker (18841966) to a young Johnnie Ray Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other. Ann Landers (19182002) Television is more interesting than people. Ann Landers (19182002) Television is more interesting than people.

If it were not, we would have people standing in the corners of our rooms. Alan Corenk

Television is a medium because anything well done is rare. Either Fred Allen (18941956) or Ernie Kovacs (19191962) Your picture tube is okay, but your cabinet has Dutch elm disease. TV repairman in a Ziggy cartoon Im So Miserable Without You
Its Almost Like Having You Here Stephen Bishop song title She Got the Gold Mine, I Got the Shaft Jerry Reed song title When My Love Comes Back from the Ladies Room
Will I Be Too Old to Care? Lewis Grizzard song title I Dont Know Whether to Kill Myself or Go Bowling Song title by Unknown Why wont you lemme feelya, Cecilia? I got two winnin hands I wanna dealya. Lyrics by Robert Byrne They Tore Out My Heart and Stomped That Sucker Flat Book title by Lewis Grizzard [Americans] are a race of convicts and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging. Samuel Johnson (17091784) America is a large friendly dog in a small room.

Every time it wags its tail it knocks over a chair. Arnold Toynbee (18891975)

The United States is like the guy at the party who gives cocaine to everybody and still nobody likes him. Jim Samuels On Thanksgiving Day all over America, families sit down to dinner at the same momenthalftime. Unknown In America there are two classes of travelfirst and with children. Robert Benchley (18891945) Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills. Robert Benchley (18891945)