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The act of writing is either something the writer dreads or actually likes, and I actually like it. Even re-writing’s fun. You’re getting somewhere, whether it seems to move or not.

James Thurber

A pinch of probability is worth a pound of perhaps.
JAMES THURBER

Probability Thinking Worth
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
Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation.
JAMES THURBER

Desperate Live Man Noisy
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.
JAMES THURBER

Business Evidence Government History Ourselves Time
The unicorn is a mythical beast.
JAMES THURBER

Fantasy Myth Unicorn
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
Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more.
JAMES THURBER

Understand Wisdom Woman Yourself
You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.
JAMES THURBER

Face Fall Yourself
Let the meek inherit the earth — they have it coming to them.
JAMES THURBER

Come Earth Inheritance Weakness
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.
JAMES THURBER

Dog Happiness Man Strange Trouble
Looks can be deceiving; it’s eating that’s believing.
JAMES THURBER

Appearance Believe Eat One Liner
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.
JAMES THURBER

Believe Man Myself Old Writing
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
You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
JAMES THURBER

Fools People Time 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
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.
JAMES THURBER

Believe Born Leadership Poet

The act of writing is either something the writer dreads or actually likes, and I actually like it. Even re-writing’s fun. You’re getting somewhere, whether it seems to move or not.

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The act of writing is either something the writer dreads or actually likes, and I actually like it. Even re-writing’s fun. You’re getting somewhere, whether it seems to move or not.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More James Thurber Quotes