Humor & Life Quote by Robert Benchley

Benchley’s line is a perfectly chilled distillation of his comic worldview: life is messy, uncomfortable, and faintly ridiculous, so you might as well respond with style and a little alcohol. The joke isn’t just the pun (coat vs. cocktail) but the breezy confidence that a martini can substitute for comfort, competence, even care. It’s hospitality recast as deflection: instead of addressing whatever caused the “wet coat” (bad weather, bad luck, tears, a night gone sideways), the speaker offers a ritual of adult composure. Dry isn’t merely a drink specification; it’s a promise of emotional dryness, too.

Benchley was writing in an America where urbane wit functioned like social currency, especially in the interwar years and the early cocktail age. The martini is shorthand for a certain class-coded ease: the city apartment, the quick quip, the sense that calamity can be managed with the right glassware. That’s the subtextual wink - this is less about getting warm than about re-entering the performance of sophistication.

It also carries a faintly cynical tenderness. The line doesn’t deny discomfort; it just refuses to wallow in it. Benchley’s intent is to make cheerfulness feel like an improvisation anyone can attempt: you can’t control the rain, but you can control the tone. In a single sentence, he sells escapism as etiquette, and turns self-medication into a punchline you can repeat at a party.