Robert Orben Quotations

A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in.

Older people shouldn't eat health food, they need all the preservatives they can get.

Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work.

To err is human - and to blame it on a computer is even more so.

Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch.

There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs there'd be no place to put it all.

I take my children everywhere, but they always find their way back home.

I got a Valentine's Day card from my girl. It said, 'Take my heart! Take my arms! Take my lips!' Which is just like her. Keeping the best part for herself.

Time flies. It's up to you to be the navigator.

Every morning I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work.

Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian.

Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right?

A graduation ceremony is an event where the commencement speaker tells thousands of students dressed in identical caps and gowns that 'individuality' is the key to success.

Life was a lot simpler when what we honored was father and mother rather than all major credit cards.

Quit worrying about your health. It will go away.

Never raise your hand to your children - it leaves your midsection unprotected.

Inflation is bringing us true democracy. For the first time in history, luxuries and necessities are selling at the same price.

In prehistoric times, mankind often had only two choices in crisis situations: fight or flee. In modern times, humor offers us a third alternative; fight, flee - or laugh.

Don't think of it as failure. Think of it as time-released success.

Humor starts like a wildfire, but then continues on, smoldering, smoldering for years.

Spring is God's way of saying, 'One more time!'

More than ever before, Americans are suffering from back problems: back taxes, back rent, back auto payments.

There are days when it takes all you've got just to keep up with the losers.

Love is so confusing - you tell a girl she looks great and what's the first thing you do? Turn out the lights!

Planned obsolescence is not really a new concept. God used it with people.

The secret of writing comedy is to know where it's all going, then get ahead of it.

What bothers me about TV is that it tends to take our minds off our minds.

If you can laugh together, you can work together.

Do your kids a favor - don't have any.

Washington is a place where politicians don't know which way is up and taxes don't know which way is down.

The chance to be seen as a warm, witty guy is too good an opportunity for a politician to miss.

With my luck, if I ever invested in General Motors, they'd bust it to Corporal!

Sometimes I get the feeling the whole world is against me, but deep down I know that's not true. Some of the smaller countries are neutral.

Every speaker has a mouth; An arrangement rather neat. Sometimes it's filled with wisdom. Sometimes it's filled with feet.

Happiness is a very small desk and a very big wastebasket.

Telling a joke is risk taking. Younger people are more insecure and not willing to put themselves on the line, so a quick one-liner is much safer.

I remember when humor was gentle pokes. I used to call it 'arm around the shoulder' humor. Now they go for the jugular and they take no prisoners. It's mean, mean stuff.

The Playboy calendar this year has some tip-top models. Any more top and they'd tip.

They're combining that new fertility drug with a birth control pill for people who don't want triplets.

Humor gives presidents the chance to be seen as warm, relaxed persons. Humor reaches out and puts its arm around the listener and says, 'I am one of you, I understand,' and implicitly it promises, 'I will do something about your problems.

I had a terrible fight with my wife on New Year's Eve. She called me a procrastinator. So I finished addressing the Christmas cards and left.

A sigh is an amplifier for people who suffer in silence.

I'd like to say a few words about one of the most popular concepts in the modern education--show and tell. Show and Tell is a device created by grammar schools to communicate family secrets to 32 other families before 9:15 am in the morning.

Economists can certainly disappoint you. One said that the economy would turn up by the last quarter. Well, I'm down to mine and it hasn't.

These detective series on TV always end at precisely the right moment-after the criminal is arrested and before the court turns him loose.

It's amazing how important your job is when you want the day off - and how unimportant it is when you want a raise.

Have you noticed when you go on a diet, the first thing you lose is your temper.

I may be forty, but every morning when I get up, I feel like a twenty-year-old. Unfortunately, there's never one around.

It's an awful thing to grow old by yourself. My wife hasn't had a birthday in seven years.

I understand the big food companies are developing a tearless onion. I think they can do it - after all, they've already given us tasteless bread.

As much as we admire all the characteristics of a Ronald Reagan, as soon as something goes wrong, people will hate those same characteristics.

THe world now has so many problems that if Moses had come down from Mount Sinai today, the two tablets he'd carry would be aspirin.

All that means is that something devastating can happen to you today or to your family & all you can do is cry about it or panic or just be grief-stricken about it; but a year or two from now or maybe ten years from now, or maybe two months or two days, you might be able to see the humor in that problem.

I don't want to say anything about my kids...but I go to PTA meetings under an assumed name!

Thanks to modern medicine we are no longer forced to endure prolonged pain, disease, discomfort and wealth.

Noise pollution is a relative thing. In a city, it's a jet plane taking off. In a monastery, it's a pen that scratches.

Summit meetings tend to be like panda matings. The expectations are always high, and the results usually disappointing.

If you can get someone to laugh with you, they will be more willing to identify with you, listen to you. It parts the waters.

Individuality' is the key to success.

A toast to the weapons of war, may they rust in peace.

I don't see why religion and science can't cooperate. What's wrong with using a computer to count our blessings?

It may be the way the cookie crumbles on Madison Avenue, but in Hong Kong its the way the egg rolls.

To reduce stress, avoid excitement. Spend more time with your spouse.

To exercise is human; not to is divine.

Happiness is contagious. Be a carrier!!

Do you realize what would happen if Moses were alive today? He'd go up to Mount Sinai, come back with the Ten Commandments, and spend the next eight years trying to get published.

Successful salesman: someone who has found a cure for the common cold shoulder.

Remember the days when you let your child have some chocolate if he finished his cereal? Now, chocolate is one of the cereals.

There are only two kinds of people in this world. The realists and the dreamers. The realists know where they are going and the dreamers have already been there.

The best birthdays of all are those that haven't arrived yet.

It always seems to someone outside the business that it is very difficult to write for a comedy show because it must be done quickly. Actually, it is much easier to write this humor than to do a joke or a show from scratch, because the audience knows the plot. Just mention what is going on and then deliver the punch line.

Sociologists say that going to the movies is a bonding experience. It probably has to do with the way you feet stick to the floor.

When we laugh we temporarily give ourselves over to the person who makes us laugh.

I should warn you that underneath these clothes I'm wearing boxer shorts and I know how to use them.

Do you realize that in the past sixty years, the only foreigners the French have been able to drive out are American tourists?

Lincoln was known to have walked miles to borrow books, to get the most rudimentary form of education. So what do we do on his birthday? We close the schools!

They say kids today don't know the value of a dollar. They certainly do know the value of a dollar. That's why they ask for five.

I love to watch those old movies on late-night television, particularly when a couple get up from a champagne dinner in a posh restaurant and the hero hands the waiter $3. But the best part is when he says, "Keep the change."

I value people with a conscience. It's like a beeper from God.

The true test of humility is whether you can say grace before eating crow.

Realists know where they're going. Dreamers have already been there.

Vacation: When you spend thousands of dollars to see what rain looks like in different parts of the world.

An economist is someone who knows all the answers to last years' questions.

Did you hear about the woman who sent out 40,000 Valentine Cards doused in perfume and signed, "Guess Who?" She's a divorce lawyer.

I'm beginning to wonder about my broker. Yesterday I told him to buy a hundred shares of A.T.&T. He said, 'Would you spell that?'

Sports like baseball, basketball, and hockey develop muscles. That's why Americans have the strongest eyes in the world.

For Father's Day, my kids always give me a bottle of cologne called English Leather. It's appropriate! To them I always smell like a wallet.

Faith, indeed, has up to the present not been able to move real mountains.... But it can put mountains where there are none. Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch.

Did you ever get to wondering if taxation without representation might have been cheaper?

Don't smoke too much, drink too much, eat too much or work too much. We're all on the road to the grave - but there's no need to be in the passing lane.

The Playboy Calendar this year has some tiptop models. Any more top and they'd tip.

Did you ever figure to be living in a time when your check is good, but the bank bounces?

Anybody with a good sense of humor is one-up on their competition. We respond to somebody who has the ability to make us laugh. It's a bonding influence.

Humor is a marvelous communications tool, as Reagan has demonstrated so well. He has weathered many a storm that others might not have. With Reagan, people just say, 'There he goes again.' A sense of humor allows a president to back off a little from the tensions of the moment and take a calmer view of things.

Very few people ever meet celebrities. All we really know is what we read about them and the most memorable lines are jokes. That's how we tend to define what we think of a public figure.

It's mandatory in this day and age to be considered to have a sense of humor and to demonstrate it. You're not paying me for a joke, You're paying me for the right joke.

President Ford used humor a great deal.

What if the meek inherited the Earth and we had to defend ourselves from Martians?

Wait'll next year! is the favorite cry of baseball fans, football fans, hockey fans, and gardeners.

We're supposed to take our problems to a family adviser. Personally, I've never met a family adviser. They're all off somewhere listening to dirty stories.