Groucho Marx Citations
Groucho Marx: Citations en anglais
“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.”
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's Life magazine where it is attributed to Jim Brewer.
Misattributed
Variante: Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
Source: The Essential Groucho: Writings For By And About 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.”
Source: The Essential Groucho: Writings by, for, and about Groucho Marx
“Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.”
No known citation to Marx. First appears unattributed in mid-1960s logic/computing texts as an example of the difficulty of machine parsing of ambiguous statements. Google Books http://books.google.co.uk/books?client=firefox-a&lr=&as_brr=0&q=%22fruit-flies%22+%22time+flies%22+banana&btnG=Search+Books&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=1900&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=1970. The Yale Book of Quotations dates the attribution to Marx to a 9 July 1982 net.jokes post on Usenet.
Misattributed
“I have had a wonderful time but this wasn't it.”
Variante: I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it.
“My experience is that people are most likely to listen to reason when in bed.”
Liner notes of An Evening With Groucho (1972) the recording of his appearance at Carnegie Hall.
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.”
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.”
The Al Jolson Show repartee following a trite, scripted Al Jolson joke. (1949)
From his autobiography Groucho and Me (1959)
Variante: Although it is generally known, I think it's about time to announce that I was born at a very early age.
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
Just after completing his second autobiography, as quoted in The Marx Brothers: A Bio-bibliography (1987) by Wes D. Gehring, p. 137
I never said that.
Interview with Roger Ebert in Esquire magazine (7 March 1972); more on this at Snopes.com: "I Love My Cigar" http://www.snopes.com/radiotv/tv/grouchocigar.asp
Telegram to the Friar's Club of Beverly Hills to which he belonged, as recounted in Groucho and Me (1959), p. 321
