Robert Benchley--"Love Conquers All" Available on Kindle

Available at Amazon.com Kindle page
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From: Love Conquers All
By: Robert Benchley (1889 - 1945)
Public Domain Book that can be read on Amazon's Kindle

We are occasionally confronted in the advertisements by the picture of an offensively bright-looking little boy, fairly popping with information, who, it is claimed in the text, knows all the inside dope on why fog forms in beads on a woolen coat, how long it would take to crawl to the moon on your hands and knees, and what makes oysters so quiet. The taunting catch-line of the advertisement is: "This Child Knows the Answer--Do You?" and the idea is to shame you into buying a set of books containing answers to all the questions in the world except the question "Where is the money coming from to buy the books?" Any little boy knowing all these facts would unquestionably be an asset in a business which specialized in fog-beads or lunar transportation novelties, but he would be awful to have about the house. "Spencer," you might say to him, "where are Daddy's slippers?" To which he would undoubtedly answer: "I don't know, Dad," (disagreeable little boys like that always call their fathers "Dad" and stand with their feet wide apart and their hands in their pockets like girls playing boys' rôles on the stage) "but I do know this, that all the Nordic peoples are predisposed to astigmatism because of the glare of the sun on the snow, and that, furthermore, if you were to place a common ordinary marble in a glass of luke-warm cider there would be a precipitation which, on pouring off the cider, would be found to be what we know as parsley, just plain parsley which Cook uses every night in preparing our dinner." With little ones like this around the house, a new version of "The Children's Hour" will have to be arranged, and it might as well be done now and got over with.

Benchley, Robert (2005). Love Conquers All (Kindle Locations 97-108). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.

Robert Benchley

Robert Benchley @ Brainyquote.com

Personal Note: I have been reading RB for years; he is one of my favorite comic essayists. Another of my favorite comic writers--Woody Allen--holds RB in very high regard. Benchley's grandson Peter Benchley wrote Jaws.

Robert (Charles) Benchley--September 15, 1889 – November 21, 1945

Robert Benchley at Wikipedia

Robert Benchley ay IMDb.com

Peter Benchley at Wikipedia

Peter Benchley, grandson of Robert Benchley, was a one-time speech writer in the White House for President Lyndon Johnson and wrote Jaws, The Island, and The Deep, all made into movies.




Quotes

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.

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

The freelance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.

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

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.

In America there are two classes of travel - first class, and with children.

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

Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed be doing at that moment.

Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing.

Robert Benchly at brainyquote.com

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