For one thing, she pronounced flowers ‘flars’ and I couldn’t let it slide.
JAMES THURBERI 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.
More James Thurber Quotes
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Sixty minutes of thinking of any kind is bound to lead to confusion and unhappiness.
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There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
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But what is all this fear of and opposition to Oblivion? What is the matter with the soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep?
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Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.
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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.
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The dog has seldom been successful in pulling man up to its level of sagacity, but man has frequently dragged the dog down to his.
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Looks can be deceiving; it’s eating that’s believing.
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Humor and pathos, tears and laughter are, in the highest expression of human character and achievement, inseparable.
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A burden in the bush is worth two on your hands.
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When all things are equal, translucence in writing is more effective than transparency, just as glow is more revealing than glare.
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A false or misunderstood word may create as much disaster as a sudden thoughtless act.
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You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
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A pinch of probability is worth a pound of perhaps.
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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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All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.
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Man is flying too fast for a world that is round. Soon he will catch up with himself in a great rear end collision.
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Somebody has said that woman’s place is in the wrong. That’s fine. What the wrong needs is a woman’s presence and a woman’s touch. She is far better equipped than men to set it right.
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There are two kinds of light – the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.
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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.
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I am not a cat man, but a dog man, and all felines can tell this at a glance – a sharp, vindictive glance.
JAMES THURBER -
Reason is 6/7 of treason.
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Writers of comedy have outlook, whereas writers of tragedy have, according to them, insight.
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The nation that complacently and fearfully allows its artists and writers to become suspected rather than respected is no longer regarded as a nation possessed with humor or depth.
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I never quite know when I’m not writing. Sometimes my wife comes up to me at a party and says, “Dammit, Thurber, stop writing.” She usually catches me in the middle of a paragraph.
JAMES THURBER -
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 -
Don’t count your boobies until they are hatched.
JAMES THURBER