“No man is lonely while eating spaghetti, for it requires so much attention”

“No man is lonely while eating spaghetti, for it requires so much attention” is a quip from author Christopher Morley (1890-1957). The quotation is often attributed—incorrectly—to rotund British screen actor Robert Morley (1908-1957). Christopher Morley used the line is a story published in Harper’s Magazine in 1926, later reprinted in his book, The Arrow (1927).
 
Spaghetti eating requires twisting the strands of spaghetti around a fork, and perhaps that was exciting in America in the early 1900s. Also, other diners need to pay attention that spaghetti sauce doesn’t fly in their direction.
 
       
Wikipedia: Christopher Morley
Christopher Morley (5 May 1890–28 March 1957) was an American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet. 
 
Wikipedia: Robert Morley

CBE (May 26, 1908 – June 3, 1992) was an Oscar-nominated English actor who, often in supporting roles, was usually cast as a pompous English gentleman representing the Establishment. In Movie Encyclopedia, film critic Leonard Maltin describes Morley as “recognizable by his ungainly bulk, bushy eyebrows, thick lips, and double chin, […] particularly effective when cast as a pompous windbag”. More politely, Ephraim Kurtz in his International Film Encyclopaedia describes Morley as a “a rotund, triple-chinned, delightful character player of the British and American stage and screen.”
 
Google Books
Harper’s magazine
By Making of America Project
Published by Harper’s Magazine Co., 1926
Item notes: v. 152
Pg. 273:
No man is lonely while eating spaghetti, for it requires so much attention.
 
Google Books
The Arrow
By Christopher Morley
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Company
1927
Pg. 33:
No man is lonely while eating spaghetti, for it requires so much attention.
 
10 July 1942, Lowell (MA) Sun, pg. 15, col. 7:
FOOD: Christopher Morley writes: No man is lonely while eating spaghetti—it requires so much attention.
 
21 June 1950, Hagerstown (MD) Daily Mail, pg. 12, col. 7 ad:
CY COLOGY SEZ:
NO MAN IS LONELY WHEN EATING SPAGHETTI BECAUSE IT REQUIRES SO MUCH ATTENTION
(Community Finance Service, Inc.—ed.)