Bennett Cerf Quotes

#1. TV's sameness has destroyed many things, such as the American urge toward independent thought.

Bennett Cerf

#2. There once was a student named Bessor Whose knowledge grew lessor and lessor. It at last grew so small He knew nothing at all, And today he's a college professor!

Bennett Cerf

#3. One of the troubles of the day, observes Mr. C.N. Peac, is that once we came upon the little red schoolhouse, whereas now we come upon the little-read school boy.

Bennett Cerf

#4. There is a mass of people, we might as well admit, who if they weren't watching television, would be doing absolutely nothing else.

Bennett Cerf

#5. Television, I love it, everything that happened before television lumped together, never caused folks to turn on a street to stare at me, or waitresses to ask for autographs.

Bennett Cerf

#6. One of the greatest threats facing book publishing, and the entire country for that matter, is censorship.

Bennett Cerf

#7. Football season: The only time of the year when a man can walk down the street with a blond on one arm and a blanket on the other without encountering raised eyebrows.

Bennett Cerf

#8. Censor: A self-appointed snoophound who sticks his nose in other people's business.

Bennett Cerf

#9. In a notable family called Stein
There were Gertrude, and Ep, and then Ein.
Gert's writing was hazy,
Ep's statues were crazy,
And nobody understood Ein.

Bennett Cerf

#10. Middle age is when your old classmates are so grey and wrinkled and bald they don't recognize you.

Bennett Cerf

#11. For me, a hearty 'belly laugh' is one of the beautiful sounds in the world.

Bennett Cerf

#12. Most of the things that are supposed to be so objectionable in books are things that every teenager, in the United States, not only knows, but has talked about at length in school, or on the way home from school.

Bennett Cerf

#13. The fact that we don't read more books in America can be traced squarely to the fact that we have newspapers that are about a hundred times as big as the newspapers anywhere else.

Bennett Cerf

#14. An oboe is an ill-wind that nobody blows good.

Bennett Cerf

#15. The person who can bring the spirit of laughter into a room is indeed blessed.

Bennett Cerf

#16. Banquet: a plate of cold, hairy chicken and artificially coloured green peas completely surrounded by dreary speeches and appeals for donations.

Bennett Cerf

#17. Fame - anyone who says he doesn't like it is crazy.

Bennett Cerf

#18. Oratory is the art of making a loud noise sound like a deep thought.

Bennett Cerf

#19. I think it's become fashionable for the snobbish egghead today to make fun of television. I've heard many people, boast, "I would never have a television set in my house," well, these people are fools.

Bennett Cerf

#20. Good manners: The noise you don't make when you're eating soup.

Bennett Cerf

#21. I think the right to read, is one of our inherent rights, and I think that people in America today are intelligent enough to decide for themselves what they want to read. Without being told, by self-appointed people, you must not read this, or you cannot read this.

Bennett Cerf

#22. The Detroit String Quartet played Brahms last night. Brahms lost.

Bennett Cerf

#23. Do I believe in ghosts? Of course I do. So do you. Deep in the souls of the most sophisticated of us is lurking a fear of the supernatural which all the discoveries of scientists cannot eradicate.

Bennett Cerf

#24. I can't say this too often - that a little humor can make life worth living. That has always been my credo. Somebody once asked me, 'What would you like your epitaph to be?' I've always said that I'd like it to be: He left people a little happier than they were when he came into the room.

Bennett Cerf

#25. The Atomic Age is here to stay - but are we?

Bennett Cerf

#26. Gross ignorance is 144 times worse than ordinary ignorance.

Bennett Cerf

#27. Politicians are like ships: noisiest when lost in a fog.

Bennett Cerf

#28. I don't stutter when I talk to God. He loves me.

Bennett Cerf