Wealth & Money Quote by Robert Benchley

Fifteen is Benchley’s favorite pressure point: old enough to see how adults really run the place, young enough to still be offended by it. The line opens with a mock-solemn recognition that “money and power” look like the whole operating system of the world. Then he punctures that worldview by framing adolescence as a kind of frantic scavenger hunt for pleasures that won’t “turn to dross.” That word choice matters. It’s not just “disappointing” or “empty”; it’s alchemy gone wrong, the promise of gold degrading into something you can’t spend, can’t eat, can’t even admire. Benchley’s comedy lives in that deflation: the teenager reaches for adult rewards and discovers they oxidize on contact.

The intent isn’t to romanticize youth so much as to lampoon the adult bargain. Money and power are presented as the obvious prizes precisely so Benchley can point out their cheap magic trick: they glitter, then they crumble in your hands. The subtext is surprisingly tender for a comedian famous for taking the air out of self-importance. He’s admitting that idealism isn’t naive; it’s an early, clear-eyed attempt to find joys with staying power.

Context helps: Benchley wrote in an era when American modern life was professionalizing, commercializing, selling status as identity. His wry voice speaks for the kid standing at the doorway of that machine, sensing the trap. The joke is that this “first beginning to realize” happens at fifteen; the sting is how many people never graduate from the dross.