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The World of S.J. Perelman QUOTES

The World of S.J. Perelman QUOTES

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

― S.J. Perelman , The World of S.J. Perelman

2 " 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. "

― S.J. Perelman , The World of S.J. Perelman

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

― S.J. Perelman , The World of S.J. Perelman

4 " MAVIS (coming up close to him): Robin, don’t you notice anything different about me? ROBIN (sniffing): Hm-m-m. Why, yes, you’ve got a funny smell. MAVIS: Don’t you find me heady, sultry, confusing? ROBIN: No. (critically) But you’ve put on a lot of weight lately. MAVIS: Have I? ROBIN: You certainly have. You’re as big as a house. And your slip is showing. MAVIS: I’m not wearing a slip. ROBIN: Well, it would show if you were. MAVIS: Anything else? ROBIN: Maybe I shouldn’t call attention to it. MAVIS: No, no, darling. By all means call attention to it. ROBIN: You’re getting wrinkles under the eyes. And a scraggly neck, like a turkey. MAVIS: Not much gets past you, does it? ROBIN (comfortably): I guess I’m just about as wide awake as anybody in the hardware business. "

― S.J. Perelman , The World of S.J. Perelman

5 " 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? "

― S.J. Perelman , The World of S.J. Perelman

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

― S.J. Perelman , The World of S.J. Perelman

7 " MENDOZA (hoarsely): I tell you the blood is boiling in my veins! You are a candy store filled with luscious nougats, a henhouse from which the pullets have yet to be stolen! MAVIS: Promise me one thing. Whatever happens— whatever they should tell you about me—we’ll always have this moment together. MENDOZA: Parbleu! Do you think I am a milk-sap, that you can put me off with your bobbery? What stands between us—this man’s foot sticking out from behind the davenport? MAVIS: Of course not. It’s—well—it’s that you’re not the man I thought you were. Who are you, anyway? MENDOZA: (simply): The exterminator. "

― S.J. Perelman , The World of S.J. Perelman

8 " 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 "

― S.J. Perelman , The World of S.J. Perelman

9 " 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 "

― S.J. Perelman , The World of S.J. Perelman

10 " 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. "

― S.J. Perelman , The World of S.J. Perelman

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

― S.J. Perelman , The World of S.J. Perelman

12 " 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? "

― S.J. Perelman , The World of S.J. Perelman

13 " In reading them, it is well to remember that many portions are in anapaestic pentameter, as they were intended to be sung through tissue paper stretched over a comb. No "

― S.J. Perelman , The World of S.J. Perelman

14 " PUDOVKIN: Kind of pooped, eh? You’ll lose that bay window before we’re through with you. BESSEMER (panting): Say, bud, bring me a glass of water, will you? MRS. BESSEMER: I’ll take some plain ginger ale. PUDOVKIN: Wouldn’t you rather have a tall, cool rum collins with mint and lots of ice? MRS. BESSEMER: Why, that sounds delicious. PUDOVKIN (comfortably) : Doesn’t it? I’ll hop down the mountain and get one. It’s only four miles—the exercise’ll do me good. BESSEMER: Look, if it’s any trouble, I’d just as soon— PUDOVKIN: Nonsense, that’s what I’m paid for, to run down every time some lush wants a snort. Or if you prefer, I can carry you down on my back. "

― S.J. Perelman , The World of S.J. Perelman

15 " 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. "

― S.J. Perelman , The World of S.J. Perelman

16 " 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 "

― S.J. Perelman , The World of S.J. Perelman

17 " True, it was a difficult chair to slumber in; at the beginning, its magnificence overawed me and I sat gingerly in it, holding at eye level a copy of Sir Samuel Baker’s The Albert Nyanza in crushed levant. I then tried browsing through the latest English review, but somehow couldn’t get past the pictures of Ovomalt and thermal underwear. At last, I found the key in Max Lerner’s windy periods, and, lapped in his peristaltic rhetoric, slept like a baby. Once inside that chair, Lerner in hand, I was as remote from hypertension as from the Asiatic capitals where he bombinated. "

― S.J. Perelman , The World of S.J. Perelman

18 " The other occupants of my car were a pair of tall, willowy thoroughbreds apparently checking in from Oshkosh, for they were flanked by luggage, the color of a weathered skull, of every conceivable size. From the scorn they evinced, I sensed that they were unaccustomed to persons bearing packages, so I receded as far as I was able into the costly woodwork. The coryphee who opened the door of Schrift’s antechamber, a Dresden-china shepherdess with scallops of blue-black hair framing her face, looked like the secretaries he generally used on his lightning visits from the Coast—more adept at disengaging a zipper at the Copa than at shorthand. She "

― S.J. Perelman , The World of S.J. Perelman

19 " 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. "

― S.J. Perelman , The World of S.J. Perelman

20 " 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. "

― S.J. Perelman , The World of S.J. Perelman