Groucho Marx

A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.

A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running.

A man’s only as old as the woman he feels.

A woman is an occasional pleasure but a cigar is always a smoke.

Alimony is like buying hay for a dead horse.

All people are born alike – except Republicans and Democrats.

Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.

Before I speak, I have something important to say.

Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife.

Either he’s dead or my watch has stopped.

From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend reading it.

Getting older is no problem. You just have to live long enough.

Go, and never darken my towels again.

Humor is reason gone mad.

I didn’t like the play, but then I saw it under adverse conditions – the curtain was up.

I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.

I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.

I have a mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it.

I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.

I intend to live forever, or die trying.

I must confess, I was born at a very early age.

I must say I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a good book.

I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.

I read in the newspapers they are going to have 30 minutes of intellectual stuff on television every Monday from 7:30 to 8. to educate America. They couldn’t educate America if they started at 6:30.

I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.

I remember the first time I had sex – I kept the receipt.

I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.

I wish to be cremated. One tenth of my ashes shall be given to my agent, as written in our contract.

I won’t belong to any organization that would have me as a member.

I worked my way up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.

I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.

I’m leaving because the weather is too good. I hate London when it’s not raining.

I’m not feeling very well – I need a doctor immediately. Ring the nearest golf course.

I’ve got the brain of a four year old. I’ll bet he was glad to be rid of it.

I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.

If I held you any closer I would be on the other side of you.

If you’ve heard this story before, don’t stop me, because I’d like to hear it again.

In Hollywood, brides keep the bouquets and throw away the groom.

It isn’t necessary to have relatives in Kansas City in order to be unhappy.

Man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do that for him.

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who wants to live in an institution?

Marry me and I’ll never look at another horse!

Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms.

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.

My favourite poem is the one that starts ‘Thirty days hath September’ because it actually tells you something.

My mother loved children – she would have given anything if I had been one.

Next time I see you, remind me not to talk to you.

No man goes before his time – unless the boss leaves early.

One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I’ll never know.

Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.

Please accept my resignation. I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.

Politics doesn’t make strange bedfellows – marriage does.

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.

Practically everybody in New York has half a mind to write a book, and does.

Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted.

Room service? Send up a larger room.

She got her looks from her father. He’s a plastic surgeon.

The first thing which I can record concerning myself is, that I was born. These are wonderful words. This life, to which neither time nor eternity can bring diminution – this everlasting living soul, began. My mind loses itself in these depths.

The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.

There’s one way to find out if a man is honest – ask him. If he says, “Yes,” you know he is a crook.

Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.

Well, Art is Art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know.

Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?

Whoever named it necking was a poor judge of anatomy.

Why a four-year-old child could understand this report. Run out and find me a four-year-old child. I can’t make head nor tail out of it.

Why should I care about posterity? What’s posterity ever done for me?

Why, I’d horse-whip you if I had a horse.

Wives are people who feel they don’t dance enough.

Women should be obscene and not heard.