Humor & Life Quote by Fred Allen

A polite hobby gets converted into a weapon: Allen takes the most wholesome small-talk line in the book and twists it into a wish for someone else’s disappearance. The joke lands because it keeps a straight face. “I like long walks” is the kind of harmless self-description meant to signal decency and approachability; Allen lets you hear that cliché first, then yanks the rug with “especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.” The laugh comes from the sudden revelation that the speaker’s “preference” isn’t about nature or health, but about social escape fantasies.

The intent is social revenge made socially acceptable. Allen isn’t confessing to actual malice so much as performing the irritation everyone feels but is trained to mask. That’s the subtext: civility is often a thin, theatrical layer over impatience. By outsourcing the “walk” to the annoying person, he avoids direct confrontation. It’s passive aggression sharpened into wit, the old comedy trick of saying something mean in a form that’s too elegant to be called mean.

Context matters: Allen was a radio-era comedian, operating in a culture that prized manners, restraint, and euphemism. You couldn’t go on air and tell someone to get lost; you could, however, frame it as a lifestyle preference. The line also captures a mid-century comic sensibility that treats everyday annoyance as a defining modern condition: crowded, chatty, relentless. Allen’s genius is making that grievance sound like a charming confession.