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S. J. Perelman Quotes
1904–1979 United States
Sidney Joseph Perelman (February 1, 1904 – October 17, 1979) was an American humorist and writer for the stage and screen. He co-wrote screenplays for the Marx Brothers (Monkey Business and Horse Feathers), and for Around the World in Eighty Days.
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10 quotes
The main obligation is to amuse yourself.
I have Bright's disease and he has mine.
Fate was dealing from the bottom of the deck.
The Rising Gorge (1961)
Only the scenario writers are exempt. These are tied between the tails of two spirited Caucasian ponies, which are then driven off in opposite directions. This custom is called "a conference".
"Oh, son, I wish you hadn’t become a scenario writer!" she sniffled.
"Great-grandfather died under strange circumstances. He opened a vein in his bath."
The worst disgrace that can befall a producer is an unkind notice from a New York reviewer. When this happens, the producer becomes a pariah in Hollywood. He is shunned by his friends, thrown into bankruptcy, and like a Japanese electing hara-kiri, he commits suttee.
Before they made S J Perelman they broke the mold.
I guess I’m just an old mad scientist at bottom. Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care not who writes the nation’s laws.
In pulp fiction it is a rigid convention that the hero’s shoulders and the heroine’s balcon constantly threaten to burst their bonds, a possibility which keeps the audience in a state of tense expectancy. Unfortunately for the fans, however, recent tests reveal that the wisp of chiffon which stands between the publisher and the postal laws has the tensile strength of drop-forged steel.
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