“But what is all this fear of and opposition to Oblivion? What is the matter with the soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep?”

I don’t believe the writer should know too much where he’s going. If he does, he runs into old man blueprint—old man propaganda.

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.

I am not a cat man, but a dog man, and all felines can tell this at a glance – a sharp, vindictive glance.

Writers of comedy have outlook, whereas writers of tragedy have, according to them, insight.

Sixty minutes of thinking of any kind is bound to lead to confusion and unhappiness.

Don’t get it right, just get it written.

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.

Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more.

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself.

Humor and pathos, tears and laughter are, in the highest expression of human character and achievement, inseparable.

I do not have a psychiatrist and I do not want one, for the simple reason that if he listened to me long enough, he might become disturbed.

There are two kinds of light – the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.

Reason is 6/7 of treason.

There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.

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.

History is replete with proofs, from Cato the Elder to Kennedy the Younger, that if you scratch a statesman you find an actor, but it is becoming harder and harder, in our time, to tell government from show business.