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Groucho Marx Quotes
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Julius Henry Marx , known professionally as Groucho Marx , was an American comedian, writer, stage, film, radio, and television star. He was known as a master of quick wit and is widely considered one of the best comedians of the modern era.

He made 13 feature films with his siblings the Marx Brothers , of whom he was the third-born. He also had a successful solo career, most notably as the host of the radio and television game show You Bet Your Life.

His distinctive appearance, carried over from his days in vaudeville, included quirks such as an exaggerated stooped posture, glasses, cigar, and a thick greasepaint mustache and eyebrows. These exaggerated features resulted in the creation of one of the world's most ubiquitous and recognizable novelty disguises, known as Groucho glasses: a one-piece mask consisting of horn-rimmed glasses, large plastic nose, bushy eyebrows and mustache.

✵ 2. October 1890 – 19. August 1977  •  Other names Julius Henry Marx
Groucho Marx photo
Groucho Marx: 117 quotes99 likes

Groucho Marx Quotes

“Policeman: "A hermit eh? Then why's your table set for four?"

Groucho: "That's nothing. My alarm clock is set for eight.”

Groucho Marx

“We'll meet at the theater tonight. I'll hold your seat 'til you get there. Once you get there; you're on your own.”

Groucho Marx

“I read in the newspapers they are going to have 30 minutes of intellectual stuff on television every Monday from 7:30 to 8. to educate America. They couldn't educate America if they started at 6:30.”

Groucho Marx book The Groucho Letters

Source: The Groucho Letters

“Hello, I must be going.”

Groucho Marx

“If I hold you any closer I'll be in back of you!”

Groucho Marx

“Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.”

Groucho Marx

Post-Prime Ministerial

“Any place I hang my head is home.”

Groucho Marx

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

Groucho Marx

“Hello, I must be going, I cannot stay,
I came to say, I must be going.
I’m glad I came, but just the same,
I must be going.”

Groucho Marx

“Chico: "Here's the book, it's a dollar"
Groucho: "Here's a ten, and shoot the change."
Chico: "I don't have change I'd have to give you nine more books.”

Groucho Marx

“Love flies out the door when money comes innuendo.”

Groucho Marx

“The first part of the party of the first part shall be known in this contract as the first part of the party of the first part shall be known in this contract-- Look, why should we quarrel about a thing like this? We'll take it right out, eh?”

Groucho Marx

“Marriage is the chief cause of divorce.”

Groucho Marx

“Would you mind getting off that fly paper and giving the flies a chance?"
"Ahhh, you can't trick me! Flies don't read papers!”

Groucho Marx

“Hail, hail Freedonia, land of the free!”

Groucho Marx

Source: Groucho Marx

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

Groucho Marx

This may be original with Groucho, but the Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/category/jim-brewer/ mentions the earliest report found in a 1958 issue of Boy&#x27;s Life magazine where it is attributed to Jim Brewer. <br class="br">Misattributed <br class="br">Variant: Outside of a dog, a book is man&#x27;s best friend. Inside of a dog, it&#x27;s too dark to read. <br class="br">Source: The Essential Groucho: Writings For By And About Groucho Marx

“Come on in girls, and leave all hope behind.”

Groucho Marx

“Years ago, I tried to top everybody, but I don't anymore. I realized it was killing conversation. When you're always trying for a topper you aren't really listening. It ruins communication.”

Groucho Marx

As quoted in What Color is Your Paradigm: Thinking for Shaping Life and Results (2003) by Howard Edson, p. 184
Source: The Essential Groucho: Writings by, for, and about Groucho Marx

“I love my cigar too, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while.”

Groucho Marx

Source: The Essential Groucho: Writings by, for, and about Groucho Marx

“That's bad luck: three on a midget.”

Groucho Marx

“You're a great brother. You give us a heart attack worrying about your heart attack, which you didn't even have the decency to have!”

Groucho Marx

“I don't know. When I was born there was a nurse taking care of me."
"What's the matter? Couldn't the nurse take care of herself?" "Sure she could. I just found that out too late.”

Groucho Marx

“Even the intellectual crowd will have none of me. Physically, I look like one of them. Graying at the temples, I walk with a slight limp and wear thick glasses.”

Groucho Marx

“I could dance with you till the cows come home. Better still, I'll dance with the cows and you come home."
Groucho Marx was never one to pass up an opportunity for a play on words and this occurs in his dialogue of the 1933 film Duck Soup:”

Groucho Marx

“My experience is that people are most likely to listen to reason when in bed.”

Groucho Marx

Liner notes of An Evening With Groucho (1972) the recording of his appearance at Carnegie Hall.

“I did a bond tour during the Second World War… We were raising money, and we played Boston and Philadelphia and most of the big cities. And we got to Minneapolis. There wasn't any big theater to play there, so we did our show in a railroad station. Then I told the audience that I knew a girl in Minneapolis. She was also known in St. Paul, she used to come over to visit me. She was known as "The Tail Of Two Cities."”

Groucho Marx

I didn't sell any more bonds, but eh... they didn't allow me to appear anymore.
Recounting a War Bonds tour in his Carnegie Hall appearance (6 May 1972)

“I've been around so long, I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin.”

Groucho Marx

Apparently said by Oscar Levant: "I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin" (as quoted in The Wit and Wisdom of Hollywood (1972) by Max Wilk).
Misattributed

“A likely story — and probably true.”

Groucho Marx

The Al Jolson Show repartee following a trite, scripted Al Jolson joke. (1949)

“They say Allen got something from the Marx Brothers. He got nothing. Maybe twenty years ago, he might have been inspired. Today he's an original. The best, the funniest.”

Groucho Marx

On Woody Allen, in an interview with Roger Ebert in Esquire magazine (7 March 1972) http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19720307/PEOPLE/41116001

“To write an autobiography of Groucho Marx would be as asinine as to read an autobiography of Groucho Marx.”

Groucho Marx

Just after completing his second autobiography, as quoted in The Marx Brothers: A Bio-bibliography (1987) by Wes D. Gehring, p. 137

“I got $25 from Reader's Digest last week for something I never said. I get credit all the time for things I never said. You know that line in You Bet Your Life? The guy says he has seventeen kids and I say: "I smoke a cigar, but I take it out of my mouth occasionally?"”

Groucho Marx

I never said that. <br class="br">Interview with Roger Ebert in Esquire magazine (7 March 1972); more on this at Snopes.com: &quot;I Love My Cigar&quot; http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/grouchocigar.asp

“I sent the club a wire stating, "PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER."”

Groucho Marx

Telegram to the Friar's Club of Beverly Hills to which he belonged, as recounted in Groucho and Me (1959), p. 321