Quotes from S.J Perelman

I had a hell of a time getting here, brother," I revealed when we had finished trading insincerities.

Look, Grover Cleveland," one of them finally snapped at me after my third approach. "Harmoniums and water wings, diavolos and pungs we got, but Victorian easy chairs—nyet. And now, excuse me, will you? I have another nudnick here wants a round table like King Arthur's.

The manager of the enterprise, a foxy-nose with a serried gray marcel that mounted like a linotype keyboard, was the soul of courtesy.

An inexpressible radiance suffused me. The chair was so much more beautiful than my cinematic memory that speech was inadequate. It was a haven, a refuge; I saw myself lolling in it, churchwarden poised, evolving new cosmogonies, quoting abstruse references to Occam's razor and Paley's watch. "Oh, God," I choked, extracting a fistful of bills. "I—You've made me so happy! How much?

immortality is a chancy matter, subject to the caprice of the unborn. Not

A moment later, Schrift reappeared in a striking pair of undershorts, with vertical stripes like French wallpaper. "Now, for openers," he began, extracting the trees from a pair of suède chukker boots, "did you read this new best seller Valuta, by Waldemar Knobnose!" "Only the first eighteen pages," I admitted. "The woman whose copy it was got off the bus at Altman's.

It was grudgingly conceded by the traffic wizards that in abolishing so-called normal hazards like sharp curves, intersections, traffic signals, and pedestrian and railroad crossings they had substituted the peril of deadly monotony. The

Sure I like Grossinger's," it was saying, "but let me warn you—if you go up there, be sure and wear sunglasses. You can get snow blindness from the sour cream." It

By this same post, I am delegating a close friend of mine, Irving Wiesel, to visit your place of business and ferret out the truth. You can lay your cards on the table with Wiesel or not, as you see fit. When he finishes with you, you will have neither cards nor table.

Lox vobiscum, and give my regards to Broadway." His

Back for the summer, eh?" he inquired. "Say, you certainly look awful. What are those big circles under your eyes?" "Glasses," I said evenly. "What the hell do you think they are?

MRS. BESSEMER: Yes, sir? PUDOVKIN: If this is chicken consommé, so is Lake Louise. And you can tell the manager I said so. MRS. BESSEMER: But you're the manager, Mr. Pudovkin. PUDOVKIN (to the others): Well, I've heard all the excuses, but that's a new one.

To adduce proof that the husky, straw-hatted young man in gabardine who tailed me the whole next month was an F.B.I. operative is impossible, nor can I swear that my mail was fluoroscoped during that period. I do know that for a while I underwent all the tremors of a Graham Greene character on the run, even if it had no purificatory effect on my religious views. When

I mean, he didn't get in till four. He hosted a party at Neuralgio's for our new French author, Claude Nasal-Passages, and then everybody went on to the Twelve Apostles.

Look at this shirt!" exclaimed Schrift, with sudden irrelevant fury. "Specially made for me by Thresher & Glenny in London—it cost more than you probably spent on coal last winter. If I told 'em once, I told 'em a hundred times—I want the monogram in Old English, not roman type! What do they think I am—a letterhead? No wonder the British Empire's falling apart.

Take one thing with another, there are few places I know better than the heart of Africa. Set me down in Bechuanaland or the Cameroons and I will find my way home with less difficulty than I would from Rittenhouse Square or Boylston Street. My

Well—er—you see, my face never changes," I replied evasively, "but there's this portrait of me that ages instead.

She was accompanied by a vital, leathery taxpayer with protuberant eyes, opulently clad in a black astrakhan coat sporting a mink collar. His face was screwed around an unlit Partagas which he was savagely chewing into submission.

At first they were pitched in a low, rasping hum devoid of vowels, somewhat like Icelandic but more bestial. As

Two young ladies, in toreador pants and mohair sweaters, whose swirling coiffures looked as though they had been squeezed from an icing gun, had ranged themselves at the fountain. They