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 THURBERThe laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms -hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal.
More James Thurber Quotes
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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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One martini is all right. Two are too many, and three are not enough.
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I think that maybe if women and children were in charge we would get somewhere.
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Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.
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There is no exception to the rule that every rule has an exception.
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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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You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.
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I never really rallied after the birth of my first child.
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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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The difference between our decadence and the Russians is that while theirs is brutal, ours is apathetic.
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Writers of comedy have outlook, whereas writers of tragedy have, according to them, insight.
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I don’t believe the writer should know too much where he’s going. If he does, he runs into old man blueprintold man propaganda.
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Unless artists can remember what it was to be a little boy, they are only half complete as artist and as man.
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Don’t count your boobies until they are hatched.
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Man is troubled by what might be called the Dog Wish, a strange and involved compulsion to be as happy and carefree as a dog.
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There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
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The trouble with the lost generation is that it didn’t get lost enough.
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The unicorn is a mythical beast.
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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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Two is company, four is a party, three is a crowd. One is a wanderer.
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She wasn’t much to look at but she was something to think about.
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Progress was all right. Only it went on too long.
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It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.
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Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more.
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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.
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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?
JAMES THURBER