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.
JAMES THURBERWriters of comedy have outlook, whereas writers of tragedy have, according to them, insight.
More James Thurber Quotes
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Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?
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Looks can be deceiving; it’s eating that’s believing.
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A pinch of probability is worth a pound of perhaps.
JAMES THURBER -
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.
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Comedy has ceased to be a challenge to the mental processes. It has become a therapy of relaxation, a kind of tranquilizing drug.
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Two is company, four is a party, three is a crowd. One is a wanderer.
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There is something about a poet which leads us to believe that he died, in many cases, as long as 20 years before his birth.
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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.
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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 always begin at the left with the opening word of the sentence and read toward the right and I recommend this method.
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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 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.
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Humor is a serious thing. I like to think of it as one of our greatest earliest natural resources, which must be preserved at all cost.
JAMES THURBER -
Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.
JAMES THURBER -
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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The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody’s guess.
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The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms -hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal.
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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.
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Sixty minutes of thinking of any kind is bound to lead to confusion and unhappiness.
JAMES THURBER -
One martini is all right. Two are too many, and three are not enough.
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Man has gone long enough, or even too long, without being man enough to face the simple truth that the trouble with man is man.
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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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All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.
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For one thing, she pronounced flowers ‘flars’ and I couldn’t let it slide.
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Don’t get it right, just get it written.
JAMES THURBER -
The most dangerous food is wedding cake.
JAMES THURBER