Billy Bennett Quotes

“She knows I'm a deserter from the Scottish Fusiliers,
She knows I stole a blind-man's can…that got me seven years!
She knows I've been connected with a gang of West-End Pests,
And the police have had me twice inside the cage;
And she knows I mix with ladies that have got a shady past,
But my mother doesn't know I'm on the stage.”

Billy Bennett

"My Mother Doesn't Know I'm on the Stage", line 11

“And you can't part a boy from his father,
You can't part a boy from his dad,
You can't part a Scotchman from money
No matter how many he's had.
You can't part the skin of a sausage
Or a dad from his fond son and heir,
And you can't part the hair on a bald-headed man
For there'll be no parting there.”

Billy Bennett

"Daddy", line 33

“'Twas the fifteenth anniversary of her twenty-second year,
So he smiled at her as sweetly as a hog
And asked what present she would like. And jestingly she said:
"Your green tie for my little yellow dog."”

Billy Bennett

"The Green Tie on the Little Yellow Dog", line 13

“Billy Bennett – I speak of the artist – was forthright, bawdy, and wholesome…[His] grossness had that gusto about it which is like a high wind blowing over a noisome place.”

Billy Bennett

James Agate Immoment Toys (New York, [1945] 1969) p. 225.
Criticism

“Remember what the Patriarch King Solomon
Told his harem on the night they'd had a few:
"Teetotalum overcoatum asqua scutum atomack
Sonata with tomoto, laringitis, cul de sac."
Translation: "If your rhubarb's fallen try and bend it back."
That's a motto for the likes of me and you.”

Billy Bennett

"Mottoes", line 41

“There's a cockeyed yellow poodle to the north of Conga Pooch;
There's a little hot cross bun that's turning green;
There's a double-jointed woman doing tricks in Chu-Chin-Chow,
And you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.”

Billy Bennett

"The Green Tie on the Little Yellow Dog", line 37