Humor & Life Quote by Jimmy Durante

Durante’s line lands like a vaudeville punchline that doubles as career insurance. The grammar is mangled on purpose: “Be a awful nice” isn’t ignorance, it’s persona. He’s selling the working-class sage routine, the guy who’s seen enough back rooms, booking agents, and bruised egos to reduce social ethics to a single rule of thumb. The misspelling of “to ’em goin’ up” keeps it intimate and street-level, as if the advice is being slipped across a dressing-room mirror in grease pencil.

The intent is practical, not sentimental: treat people well because power is temporary and the industry is small. That’s the subtext too: success is less a straight climb than a revolving door. Today’s underling is tomorrow’s gatekeeper; today’s king is tomorrow’s punchline. Durante turns morality into self-preservation, which is why it works. It doesn’t ask you to be kind because kindness is noble; it tells you rudeness is inefficient.

Context matters: show business in Durante’s era ran on circuits, repeat bookings, and reputation long before social media made “being difficult” searchable. You could burn bridges quickly, and you couldn’t always outrun the smoke. The line also carries a soft threat disguised as folksy wisdom. It’s a reminder that social hierarchies are theatrical, and the cast changes nightly. Be nice isn’t virtue signaling; it’s stagecraft.