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Where most of us end up there is no knowing, but the hellbent get where they are going.

James Thurber

Comedy has to be done en clair. You can’t blunt the edge of wit or the point of satire with obscurity. Try to imagine a famous witty saying that is not immediately clear.
JAMES THURBER

Clear Comedy Famous Imagination Point
I write humor the way a surgeon operates, because it is a livelihood, because I have a great urge to do it, because many interesting challenges are set up, and because I have the hope it may do some good.
JAMES THURBER

Goodness Hope Humor Interest Operate Surgeon Writing
I was seized by the stern hand of Compulsion, that dark, unreasonable Urge that impels women to clean house in the middle of the night.
JAMES THURBER

Cleaning Hands Night Reason
So much has already been written about everything that you can’t find out anything about it.
JAMES THURBER

Finding Writing Yourself
Humourists lead… an existence of jumpiness and apprehension. They sit on the edge of the chair of Literature. In the house of Life they have the feeling that they have never taken off their overcoats.
JAMES THURBER

Edge Existence Literature
Humor and pathos, tears and laughter are, in the highest expression of human character and achievement, inseparable.
JAMES THURBER

Achievement Character Expression Humor Laughter Separate
Comedy has ceased to be a challenge to the mental processes. It has become a therapy of relaxation, a kind of tranquilizing drug.
JAMES THURBER

Challenge Comedy Drugs Therapy
All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.
JAMES THURBER

Death Learning Man Strive Wisdom
The things we laugh at are awful while they are going on, but get funny when we look back. And other people laugh because they’ve been through it too. The closest thing to humor is tragedy.
JAMES THURBER

Laughter People Tragedy
I always begin at the left with the opening word of the sentence and read toward the right and I recommend this method.
JAMES THURBER

Beginning Method Myself Open Word
It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.
JAMES THURBER

Answer Better Known Question
The unicorn is a mythical beast.
JAMES THURBER

Fantasy Myth Unicorn
Unless artists can remember what it was to be a little boy, they are only half complete as artist and as man.
JAMES THURBER

Artist Childhood Man Remember
I can feel a thing I cannot touch and touch a thing I cannot feel. The first is sad and sorry, the second is your heart.
JAMES THURBER

Feeling Heart Sadness Sorry Touch Yourself
For one thing, she pronounced flowers ‘flars’ and I couldn’t let it slide.
JAMES THURBER

Accent Ignore Language Pronounce
Things have dropped from me. I have outlived certain desires; I have lost friends, some by death… others through sheer inability to cross the street.
JAMES THURBER

Cross Desire Friendship Lost Street

Where most of us end up there is no knowing, but the hellbent get where they are going.

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Where most of us end up there is no knowing, but the hellbent get where they are going.

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