A VERY funny author, NOT THE AUTHOR OF "JAWS" (Peter is his grandson.)
Benchley himself best explains why he's a favorite. A few quotes:
"What is the disease which manifests itself in an inability to leave a party -- any party at all -- until it is all over and the lights are put out? It must be some sort of pernicious inertia."
-- Toddling Along
" If the children of today can get electric grain elevators and tin automobiles for Christmas, why aren't they that much better off than their grandfathers who got only wristlets? Learning the value of money, which seems to be the only argument of the stand-patters, doesn't hold very much water as a Christmas slogan. The value of money can be learned in just about five minutes when the time comes, but Christmas is not the season."
-- A Good Old Fashioned Christmas
"In America there are two classes of travel--first class, and with children. Traveling with children corresponds roughly to traveling third-class in Bulgaria.
"...Those who have taken a very small baby on a train maintain that this ranks as pleasure along with having a nerve killed. On the other hand, those whose wee companions are in the romping stage, simply laugh at the claims of the first group."
--Kiddie Car Travel
"When you consider that the world is full of men who can't stoop over to tie their shoes without bumping their head, women to whom left and right are interchangeable as a matter of principle, young people whose parents are still wondering when they are going to develop mentally beyond the age of nine--all driving automobiles--then the logical ending to the whole situation is for all the automobiles in the world to pile up on top of one another at one big cross-road.
"I, myself, am aghast at the possibilities of such a catastrophe when I think of what might happen in my own case if Nature really took its course when I am at the wheel, and there must be millions of people driving who are no better equipped than I am to guide a motor vehicle through any more of an emergency than a sudden light breeze."
-- Lucky World!
In fact, I get hysterical just thumbing through the Table of Contents of any Benchley Collection.