This exact wording is from Allen’s opening monologue in Annie Hall (1977), which he co-wrote with Marshall Brickman. On screen, Allen presents the line as his paraphrase of a joke “usually attributed to Groucho Marx.” The wording is Allen’s, but the joke belongs to Groucho.
“I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member” Woody Allen as Alvy Singer, Annie Hall (1977), paraphrasing a joke usually credited to Groucho Marx · Verbatim: “I would never wanna belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member.”
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Evoking the world of Woody Allen — American filmmaker, comedian & writer. Theme: "I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
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Provenance
Where the line comes from
Work
Annie Hall
Released
20 April 1977 (United Artists)
Written by
Woody Allen and Marshall Brickman
Spoken by
Woody Allen as Alvy Singer, in the opening monologue
The other … important joke for me is one that’s usually attributed to Groucho Marx, but I think it appears originally in Freud’s Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious. And it goes like this, I’m paraphrasing: Um, I would never wanna belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member. That’s the key joke of my adult life in terms of my relationships with women.
Opening monologue
This is spoken dialogue, transcribed as on Wikiquote’s Annie Hall page ↗. The film says “wanna”, and the popular version tidies it to “want to.” Allen’s nod to Freud is the character talking, not a real source. The joke is not in Freud’s book (see below).
1949: Quote Investigator’s earliest find of Groucho’s club-resignation joke is Erskine Johnson’s column in the Dunkirk Evening Observer (20 October 1949), tied to a resignation from the Friars Club. QI notes that the wording is “endlessly mutable” and that nobody has produced the actual letter or telegram (Quote Investigator ↗).
1951 and 1959: Groucho’s son Arthur Marx tells the story in Collier’s (13 October 1951). Groucho retells it himself in his memoir Groucho and Me (1959) (Wikiquote: Groucho Marx ↗), set at what Quote Investigator describes as a fictionalized club (Quote Investigator ↗).
1977: In Annie Hall, Woody Allen as Alvy Singer recasts the joke as “any club that would have someone like me for a member.” He credits it to Groucho, and also, wrongly, to Freud (Wikiquote: Annie Hall ↗).
The Freud claim: Film scholar Richard Raskin points out that “neither the joke itself nor any likely forerunner appears in that book.” He suggests that Allen was probably thinking of a joke in Theodor Reik’s Jewish Wit (Raskin, 16:9, 2007 ↗).
This wording comes from Annie Hall, first released in 1977, which is long after the 1931 cutoff. The screenplay and the film are still under copyright in the US. Groucho’s own memoir version (Groucho and Me, 1959) is also still in copyright.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
Whose joke is it?
This is an odd case. The popular credit to Woody Allen is accurate for the wording, because he really did say this sentence on film. But the joke isn’t his, and Allen says so himself in the same breath. A second credit, the one Allen gives to Freud, doesn’t hold up.
✕
The joke itselfWoody Allen Wording only
Allen introduces the line as a joke “usually attributed to Groucho Marx” and says “I’m paraphrasing” (Wikiquote: Annie Hall ↗). Groucho’s club-resignation gag was in print by 1949 in versions like “any club that would accept me as one of its members” (Quote Investigator ↗).
✕
The on-screen citationSigmund Freud Not in Freud
Alvy says the joke “appears originally in Freud’s Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious.” Richard Raskin found that neither the joke nor any likely forerunner is in that book. He points to Theodor Reik’s Jewish Wit as the probable mix-up (Raskin, 16:9 ↗).
✓The joke is Groucho Marx’s, traced to 1949. The sentence “I would never wanna belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member” is Woody Allen’s retelling in Annie Hall (1977) (Quote Investigator ↗; Wikiquote ↗).
Context
Why Allen borrowed it
Groucho’s gag was about a social club. Allen turned it inward. In Annie Hall it becomes a self-diagnosis, a neurotic’s inability to want anyone who would want him back, and he calls it “the key joke of my adult life in terms of my relationships with women.”
Richard Raskin reads the joke in the film as a “self-diagnostic tool” for Alvy and for the audience (Raskin ↗). Because Allen’s version is so well known, his “someone like me” wording now often travels without Groucho’s name attached.
That’s the key joke of my adult life in terms of my relationships with women.
Which Groucho wording is “right”?
None of them can be settled. Quote Investigator notes that no one has presented the original letter or telegram. The reported wording varies from source to source (“would accept me,” “would have me,” “will accept me”), and so does the club. QI suggests using either Groucho’s memoir wording or the earliest 1949 version (Quote Investigator ↗).
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Woody Allen is an American comedian, writer and director. He began as a gag writer and stand-up comic before making films. Annie Hall (1977), co-written with Marshall Brickman, opens with Allen as Alvy Singer speaking straight to the camera. In that opening he retells two old jokes, and the second is Groucho Marx’s gag about not wanting to join any club that would have him.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Primary source
Allen, Woody, and Marshall Brickman. Annie Hall. Directed by Woody Allen. United Artists, 1977. Opening monologue (Alvy Singer). The joke is Groucho Marx’s; see Quote Investigator, “I Don’t Want to Belong to Any Club That Will Accept Me as a Member,” 18 April 2011.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member’?” Last verified 3 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/i-would-never-want-to-belong-to-any-club-that-would-have/