Gracie Allen: Talk

“Who am I to talk? That’s a fair question, and one which deserves a better answer than I can give you.”

Gracie Allen

Source: How to Become President (1940), Ch. 1 : Government jobs pay big money
Context: Who am I to talk? That’s a fair question, and one which deserves a better answer than I can give you. … Come to think of it, who are you? Whoever you are, I sympathize with you. I sympathize with everybody; that’s what I get for being a candidate myself. Let them call us nonentities. Who cares? A nonenitiy can be just as famous as anybody else if enough people know about him.
But let’s leave personalities out of this and just talk about me.

Question

“Let them call us nonentities. Who cares? A nonenitiy can be just as famous as anybody else if enough people know about him.
But let’s leave personalities out of this and just talk about me.”

Gracie Allen

Source: How to Become President (1940), Ch. 1 : Government jobs pay big money
Context: Who am I to talk? That’s a fair question, and one which deserves a better answer than I can give you. … Come to think of it, who are you? Whoever you are, I sympathize with you. I sympathize with everybody; that’s what I get for being a candidate myself. Let them call us nonentities. Who cares? A nonenitiy can be just as famous as anybody else if enough people know about him.
But let’s leave personalities out of this and just talk about me.

People , Personality

“Offend the other candidates, because they’ll be too busy talking to hear you, and besides, they might not vote for you anyway.”

Gracie Allen

Source: How to Become President (1940), Ch. 6 : How not to offend anybody
Context: The masses demand a fighting President, and that means you’ve got to offend somebody, because the way I see it, a strong offense is the best attack.
So what can you offend?
That’s an easy one. Offend the other candidates, because they’ll be too busy talking to hear you, and besides, they might not vote for you anyway.

Business

“Of course, it goes without saying that every candidate must be progressive, fearless, vigorous, and liberal; invincible in victory and invisible in defeat, awake to the needs of the people whether they know what they know what they need or not. You should also come from a good family, because while breeding isn’t everything, it is said to be lots of fun. George Burns — that’s Mister Allen — was saying the other day that to be President of the United States you also have to have brains, integrity, ability and intelligence, but I think he was just trying to talk me into it.”

Gracie Allen

Source: How to Become President (1940), Ch. 2 : Others make good, why not you?

People , Family , Intelligence , Thinking

“I think there's so much good in the worst of us, and so many of the worst of us get the best of us, that the rest of us aren't even worth talking about.”

Gracie Allen

As quoted in Say Good Night, Gracie! : The Story of Burns & Allen (1986) by Cheryl Blythe and Susan Sackett, p. 48

Thinking