Groucho Marx Quotes

“You're heading for a breakdown. Why don't you pull yourself to pieces?”

“I was going to thrash them within an inch of their lives, but I didn't have a tape measure.”

“Wages? You want to be wage slaves? Answer me that! Of course not. What is it that makes wage slaves? Wages! I want you to be free. Strike off your chains! Strike up the band! Strike three you're out! Remember, there's nothing like Liberty, except Colliers and The Saturday Evening Post. Be free, now and forever. One and individual. One for all and all for me, and tea for two and six for a quarter.”

“One woman and one man might have been OK in your grandmother's day, but who wants to marry your grandmother? Not even your grandfather!”

“Poverty makes people sub-human Excess of wealth makes people inhuman”

“That's nothing - my alarm clock is set for eight.”

“The only real laughter comes from despair.”

“Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men -- the other 999 follow women.”

“She got her looks from her father. He's a plastic surgeon.”

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

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

“If you take cranberries and stew them like apple sauce, it tastes much more like prunes than rhubarb does.”

“Do you suppose I could buy back my introduction to you?”

“I did toy with the idea of doing a cook-book . . . The recipes were to be the routine ones: how to make dry toast, instant coffee, hearts of lettuce and brownies. But as an added attraction, at no extra charge, my idea was to put a fried egg on the cover. I think a lot of people who hate literature but love fried eggs would buy it if the price was right.”

“If you are not having fun you are doing something wrong.”

“And stop pointing that beard at me, it might go off!”

“It isn't so much that hard times are coming; the change observed is mostly soft times going.”

“Will you marry me? Do you have any money? Answer the second question first.”

“Comedians are a much rarer and far more valuable commodity than all the gold and precious stones in the world.”

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

“How much would you want to stand at the wrong end of a shooting gallery?”

“He [Groucho's father] had absolutely no training, and if you had ever seen one of his suits, you'd realize what an accurate statement that is. You see, Pop never used a tape measure. He didn't believe in it. He said he could just look at a man and tell his size, with the result that frequently he'd make a pair of pants with one trouser leg seven or eight inches longer than the other.”

“The Arab and the camel are inseparable. It's been said that and Arab would give up his wife rather than give up his camel. Personally, I haven't got a camel, but I think it's a great idea.”

“No one is completely unhappy at the failure of his best friend.”

“Before I speak, I have something important to say.”