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Who really said it

When I Read About the Evils of Smoking, I Gave Up Reading

Not Joe E. Lewis — actually Groucho Marx Groucho Marx 1890–1977 · American comedian and actor
Disputed Rights unconfirmed

The joke is older than the man it is usually pinned on. Quote Investigator ↗ found it in the Hartford Courant on 7 July 1950, credited to Groucho Marx and aimed at smoking. Joe E. Lewis did tell a version — but not until 1958, and he told it differently: “Like I’ve been reading about how dangerous smoking is, so naturally I gave up reading.” Between those two dates the gag also ran under the names of a British MP and the comedian Phil Harris. Lewis was a late teller of a joke already in circulation.

Last verified 29 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“When I Read About the Evils of Smoking, I Gave Up Reading” commonly credited to Joe E. Lewis, but the joke appears in print crediting Groucho Marx in the Hartford Courant, 7 July 1950, eight years before Lewis’s differently worded 1958 version. Traced by Quotle.info

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Joe E. Lewis. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t establish where this was first published, so there’s no rights status to give. Credit it as shown above — just don’t present it as public domain, and get permission for commercial or published reuse.

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In context

Evoking the world of Groucho Marx — American comedian, actor and quiz-show host. Theme: "When I Read About the Evils of Smoking, I Gave Up Reading". 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.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "When I Read About the Evils of Smoking, I Gave Up Reading". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where the joke actually starts

Earliest known instance
The Hartford Courant, “Informing You” by M. Oakley Stafford
Date
7 July 1950, page 24 — credited to Groucho Marx
Form in 1950
Reported speech, not a verbatim quotation
Joe E. Lewis’s version
30 September 1958, Omaha World Herald — eight years later, different wording

Groucho Marx says he became disturbed over the effects of smoking, after reading an article on the subject, he gave up reading. (That’s right, not smoking. That’s Groucho.)

The 1950 Hartford Courant item as Quote Investigator ↗ transcribes it. Note that it is the columnist describing the joke, not Groucho’s own sentence — so even the earliest instance is a report, and the tidy one-line form everybody now quotes is a later polish that no source pins on anyone in particular.

Quote Investigator: When I Read About the Evils of Smoking, I Gave Up Reading

How we verified this

  • Quote Investigator ↗ dates the earliest instance to the Hartford Courant of 7 July 1950, where the joke is about smoking and is credited to Groucho Marx. Its conclusion is that Groucho “crafted the first instance in this family of humorous remarks by 1950” — with the standard caveat that earlier instances may yet turn up.
  • The same article shows the gag passing through several hands before Lewis: a version told in the House of Commons in March 1954 and credited there to Henry G. Strauss, and a drinking variant credited to the comedian Phil Harris in August 1955.
  • Joe E. Lewis appears in QI’s chronology only at 1958, in the Omaha World Herald, and the wording attributed to him there is not the wording that circulates under his name today.
  • Neither comedian’s Wikiquote page carries the line: it is absent from Joe E. Lewis ↗ and from Groucho Marx ↗, so the attribution rests on the newspaper record QI assembled rather than on any curated collection.

The exact sentence on this page — the tidy modern one-liner — matches no traced publication, so there is no work whose rights we could report. The nearest documented ancestor is a 1950 newspaper column, which is well after the 1931 United States public-domain cut-off and therefore not safe to treat as free. We assert no rights status here: unknown, not open.

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

Who has been credited with it

This is a joke that has changed owners repeatedly, which is the usual signature of a line nobody can prove they wrote first.

Groucho Marx Earliest known

The Hartford Courant of 7 July 1950 credits him, in reported speech, with giving up reading rather than smoking — the first instance Quote Investigator ↗ could locate.

Henry G. Strauss Retold, not claimed

A version reached the House of Commons in March 1954, where Strauss attributed it to an unnamed American rather than to himself, as QI documents ↗.

Phil Harris Drinking variant

A columnist credited the singer and comedian with the drinking version in August 1955 — the point at which the joke split into two topics, per QI ↗.

Joe E. Lewis

The name now attached to it. He told a version in 1958, eight years after the joke was already in print, and his reported wording differs from the line quoted under his name, according to QI ↗.

On the evidence Quote Investigator ↗ assembled, the joke belongs to Groucho Marx by 1950. Joe E. Lewis told it well, and late.

Context

How a joke changes hands

Nothing about this line was ever written down as a quotation. It entered print in 1950 as a columnist’s paraphrase, got retold in Parliament, drifted from smoking to drinking, and only later settled into the crisp one-sentence shape people repeat now.

Joe E. Lewis ended up with the credit because he was the right kind of famous for it — a nightclub comedian whose public character was built on drinking and dangerous living. A joke about ignoring health warnings had nowhere better to land.

A joke about ignoring health warnings had nowhere better to land than a comedian famous for ignoring them.

Read the full chain

QI’s chronology runs: 1950 Groucho Marx (smoking, Hartford Courant); 1954 the House of Commons via Henry G. Strauss; 1955 Phil Harris (drinking); 1955 a newspaper cartoon caption; 1957 an anonymous “heavy cigaret smoker” in a Massachusetts paper; 1958 Joe E. Lewis.

Six owners in eight years, and the one whose name stuck was sixth. QI credits Fred Shapiro and Barry Popik for the underlying newspaper work.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Truth Doubt

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: the full chronologyquoteinvestigator.com

Traces the joke from the 1950 Hartford Courant through Lewis in 1958, with the citation for each step.
Quote Investigator: Joe E. Lewis tagquoteinvestigator.com

Every QI investigation touching Joe E. Lewis, including this one.
Wikipedia: Groucho Marxen.wikipedia.org

Life dates (1890–1977) and career for the comedian the 1950 column credits.
Wikipedia: Joe E. Lewisen.wikipedia.org

Life dates (1902–1971) and the nightclub career that made him a magnet for drinking jokes.
Wikiquote: Joe E. Lewisen.wikiquote.org

His sourced quotations — notably, this line is not among them.

The author

About Groucho Marx

Groucho Marx

1890–1977 · American comedian, actor and quiz-show host

Groucho Marx (2 October 1890 – 19 August 1977) was the wisecracking third Marx brother, who worked vaudeville, Broadway and film before hosting the quiz show You Bet Your Life. His trade was the fast one-liner, which made him both a prolific source of jokes and a permanent destination for other people’s.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

M. Oakley Stafford, “Informing You,” The Hartford Courant, 7 July 1950, 24, credited to Groucho Marx; earliest instance located in Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: When I Read About the Evils of Smoking, I Gave Up Reading,” 21 March 2013.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘When I Read About the Evils of Smoking, I Gave Up Reading’?” Last verified 29 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/when-i-read-about-the-evils-of-smoking-i-gave-up-reading/

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