Groucho and Me

I sent the club a wire stating, PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER.

Any playwright who has been up against the agony of casting plays will tell you that the actor who can play comedy is the fellow to shoot for. The comic intuition gets to the heart of a human situation with a precision and a velocity unattainable in any other way. A great comic actor will do it for you with an inflection of voice as adroit as the flick of the wrist of a virtuoso fencer.” Nevertheless,

You must realize that not all insomniacs are afflicted with the same blights, and what cures one man is another man’s poison. What about the bed you are floundering around in? Do you use a soft mattress, an orthopedic one, or do you sleep on the springs like the Hindus? Many physicians recommend sleeping on the floor if you arrive home late at night half crocked or, in medical terms, “with a bun on.” I, on the other hand, advise you to forget the doctors, and advise you to sleep on the floor when sober. It has many things to recommend it. To begin with, you eliminate the cost of a bed. The money saved here can then be used for getting drunk again. Moreover, if you sleep on the floor there is no danger of falling—unless you happen to be sleeping near an open manhole.

I don't want to belong to any club that would have me as a member

Harpo, a shy and silent fellow, was taken up by the Algonquin crowd, at that time probably the most famous and brilliant conversational group in America. On a clear day, a good many of the following would be assembled there for lunch and mayhem: George Kaufman, Marc Connelly, Robert Benchley, Alexander Woollcott, Franklin P. Adams, Dorothy Parker, Newman Levy, Robert Sherwood, Howard Dietz and many others.

This isn’t a particularly novel observation, but the world is full of people who think they can manipulate the lives of others merely by getting a law passed. There are large groups in America who, if they could swing it, would prohibit the use of everything that they didn’t personally approve of—smoking, drinking, dancing, going to the movies, eating Italian salami and, if it could be regulated, even love.

PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO

But if you’ve lived high on the hog for a few decades, the thought of spending your declining years sans all the wonderful things you had when you were in the chips can give you the horrors.

Gentlemen? If you continue to write nasty pieces about me, I shall be obliged to cancel my subscription.

PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER.

Now that I had become a man (with a leaky fountain pen to prove it), I was ready to take on the world.

Although it is generally known, I think it’s about time to announce that I was born at a very early age.