Famous Fred Allen Quotations

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"Hollywood is a place where people from Iowa mistake each other for stars."
by Fred Allen
"The last time I saw him he was walking down Lover's Lane holding his own hand."
by Fred Allen
"Imitation is the sincerest form of television."
by Fred Allen
"[Television is] the triumph of machine over people."
by Fred Allen
"A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized."
by Fred Allen
"A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized"
by Fred Allen
"A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done."
by Fred Allen
"A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done"
by Fred Allen
"Advertising is 85% confusion and 15% commission."
by Fred Allen
"An income tax form is like a laundry list -- either way you lose your shirt."
by Fred Allen
"California is a fine place to live--if you happen to be an orange."
by Fred Allen
"Committee--a group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing can be done."
by Fred Allen
"Do we really deserve top billing?"
by Fred Allen
"During the Samuel Johnson days they had big men enjoying small talk; today we have small men enjoying big talk."
by Fred Allen
"Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted."
by Fred Allen
"Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns he should be drawn and quoted."
by Fred Allen
"He was so narrow minded that if he fell on a pin it would blind him in both eyes."
by Fred Allen
"He's so small, he's a waste of skin."
by Fred Allen
"Her hat is a creation that will never go out of style. It will look ridiculous year after year."
by Fred Allen
"Hollywood is a place where people from Iowa mistake each other for movie stars."
by Fred Allen
"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."
by Fred Allen
"I have just returned from Boston. It is the only thing to do if you find yourself up there."
by Fred Allen
"I have just returned from Boston. It is the only sane thing to do if you find yourself up there."
by Fred Allen
"I have just returned from Boston. It is the only sane thing to do if you find yourself up there"
by Fred Allen
"If the grass is greener in the other fellow's yard - let him worry about cutting it."
by Fred Allen
"My father never raised his hand to any one of his children, except in self-defense."
by Fred Allen
"My hometown was so dull that one time the tide went out and never came back."
by Fred Allen
"Radio is a bag of mediocrity where little men with carbon minds wallow in sluice of their own making."
by Fred Allen
"Television is the triumph of machine over people."
by Fred Allen
"Television is a new medium. It's called a medium because nothing is well-done."
by Fred Allen
"Television is a medium because anything well done is rare."
by Fred Allen
"The vice-president of an advertising agency is a bit of executive fungus that forms on a desk that has been exposed to conference."
by Fred Allen
"What's on your mind? If you'll forgive the overstatement."
by Fred Allen
"What's on your mind, if you will allow the overstatement"
by Fred Allen
"You can take all the sincerity in Hollywood, place it in the navel of a firefly and still have room enough for three caraway seeds and a producer's heart."
by Fred Allen
"An advertising agency is 85 percent confusion and 15 percent commission."
by Fred A. Allen
"I don't have to look up my family tree, because I know that I'm the sap."
by Fred A. Allen
"Most of us spend the first six days of each week sowing wild oats; then we go to church on Sunday and pray for a crop failure."
by Fred A. Allen
"Washington is no place for a good actor. The competition from bad actors is too great."
by Fred A. Allen
"The first thing that strikes a visitor to Paris is a taxi."
by Fred A. Allen
"We are living in the machine age. For the first time in history the comedian has been compelled to supply himself with jokes and comedy material to compete with the machine. Whether he knows it or not, the comedian is on a treadmill to oblivion."
by Fred A. Allen
"A conference is a gathering of people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done."
by Fred A. Allen
"I don't want to own anything that won't fit into my coffin."
by Fred A. Allen
"He dreamed he was eating shredded wheat and woke up to find the mattress half gone."
by Fred A. Allen
"A celebrity is a person who works hard all of their life to become well known, and then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized."
by Fred A. Allen
"Her hat is a creation that will never go out of style; it will just look ridiculous year after year."
by Fred A. Allen
"A gentleman is any man who wouldn't hit a woman with his hat on."
by Fred A. Allen
"It is probably not love that makes the world go around, but rather those mutually supportive alliances through which partners recognize their dependence on each other for the achievement of shared and private goals."
by Fred A. Allen
"An associate producer is the only guy in Hollywood who will associate with a producer."
by Fred A. Allen
"Life, in my estimation, is a biological misadventure that we terminate on the shoulders of six strange men whose only objective is to make a hole in one with you."
by Fred A. Allen
"I always have trouble remembering three things: faces, names, and -- I can't remember what the third thing is."
by Fred A. Allen
"A molehill man is a pseudo-busy executive who comes to work at 9 am and finds a molehill on his desk. He has until 5 p.m. to make this molehill into a mountain. An accomplished molehill man will often have his mountain finished before lunch."
by Fred A. Allen
"Some movie stars wear their sunglasses even in church. They're afraid God might recognize them and ask for autographs."
by Fred A. Allen
"The first time I sang in the church choir; two hundred people changed their religion."
by Fred A. Allen
"The American arrives in Paris with a few French phrases he has culled from a conversational guide or picked up from a friend who owns a beret."
by Fred A. Allen


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