Algonquin Round Table Quotes

“My heart is pure as the driven slush.”
― Tallulah Bankhead

“He and I had an office so tiny, that an inch smaller and it would have been adultery.”
― Dorothy Parker

“(musicians always make straight for the piano in anybody’s house, unlike writers, who can ignore a typewriter in the same room forever.)” -- margaret case harriman”
― Margaret Harriman

“Oh good, the Algonquin Twit isn’t here.”
― Pamela Hamilton, Lady Be Good: The Life and Times of Dorothy Hale

“I've been lucky enough, in my time, to do a number of things most people never get around to doing.
I've played piano in a whore house. I've smuggled secret papers out of Russia. I've spent an evening on the divan with Peggy Hopkins Joyce. I've taught a gangster mob how to play Pinchie Winchie. I've played croquet with Bayard Swope while he kept Governor Al Smith waiting on the phone. I've gambled with Nick the Greek, sat on the floor with Greta Garbo, sparred with Benny Leonard, horsed around with the Prince of Wales, played Ping-Pong with George Gershwin. George Bernard Shaw has asked me for advice. Oscar Levant has played private concerts for me at a buck a throw. I have golfed with Ben Hogan and Sam Snead. I've basked on the Riviera with Somerset Maugham and Else Maxwell. I've been thrown out of the casino at Monte Carlo.
Flush with triumph at the poker table, I've challenged Alexander Woollcott to anagrams and Alice Duer Miller to a spelling match. I've given lessons to some of the world's greatest musicians. I've been a member of the two most famous Round Tables since the days of King Arthur-sitting with the finest creative minds of the 1920's at the Algonquin in New York, and with Hollywood's sharpest professional wits at the Hillcrest.
The truth is, I had no business doing any of these things. I couldn't read a note of music. I never finished the second grade. But I was having too much fun to recognize myself as an ignorant upstart.”
― Harpo Marx, Harpo Speaks!

“Our favorite indoor sport was the game of Murder. A session of Murder would begin at cocktail time and sometimes last all the way through dinner. It goes like this:
We start by drawing lots to pick the District Attorney. Then we draw to see who will be-known only to himself-the Murderer. This done, the D.A. retreats and the rest of us go on with cocktails and small talk, wandering around the clubhouse, warming ourselves by the fireplace, reading, or strolling outside to admire the sunset. As soon as the Murderer manages to be alone with somebody else, he points to him and says: “You are dead.” The Victim slumps down, forbidden by the rules of the game to leave the spot of the crime or make any sound until he is discovered.
When the Victim is discovered-usually along about dinnertime -the D.A. is called in to begin the investigation. Everybody is a suspect. Every suspect, except the Murderer, has to answer truthfully, to his best recollection, where he was at any given time prior to the discovery of the crime, what he was doing, and with whom. The D.A.’s job is to deduce from the pattern of answers and alibis who is lying, and is therefore the Murderer. It’s a marvelous game.”
― Harpo Marx, Harpo Speaks!