Fred allen

“A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, and then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized.”

“A telescope will magnify a star a thousand times, but a good press agent can do even better.” 

“An actor’s popularity is fleeting. His success has the life expectancy of a small boy who is about to look into a gas tank with a lighted match.” 

“An advertising agency is 85 percent confusion and 15 percent commission.”

“California is a fine place to live--if you happen to be an orange.”

“Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were administered prior to the crime.”

“Committee--a group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing can be done.”

“Hollywood--a place where people from Iowa mistake each other for movie stars.”

“I can't understand why a person will take a year to write a novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars.”

“I have just returned from Boston.  It is the only thing to do if you find yourself there.”

“I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.”

“Imitation is the sincerest form of television.”

“Television is a new medium. It's called a medium because nothing is well-done.” (on the radio program The Big Show, Dec. 17, 1950)

“Television is a triumph of equipment over people, and the minds that control it are so small you could put them in a gnat's navel with room for two caraway seeds and an agent's heart.”  ("CoEvolution Quarterly", Winter, 1977)

“There are worse things in life than death.  Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?”

“What's on your mind, if you will allow the overstatement?”