People who live in glass houses might as well answer the door.

Morey Amsterdam was best known as a mid‑century American comic and television performer, and this line reads like a stand‑alone joke crafted for stage or TV: a twist on the proverb “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” Instead of moralizing about hypocrisy, Amsterdam pivots to a practical punchline—if your life is already visible, you may as well accept the exposure. The quip is widely circulated in quotation collections under his name, but it is typically presented without a traceable performance date, script, or publication context, suggesting it may have been repeated as a stock one‑liner rather than tied to a single documented occasion.

Amsterdam’s quip riffs on the proverb “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” which warns against criticizing others when one is vulnerable to the same criticism. By adding “might as well answer the door,” he turns moral caution into comic resignation: if your life is transparent and exposed, you can’t plausibly pretend you’re not on display. The joke plays on the literal image of a glass house—privacy is impossible—while also suggesting a social truth about hypocrisy and scrutiny: once you’re conspicuously open to judgment, you may as well meet it directly rather than hide.