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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.

James Thurber

Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.
JAMES THURBER

Angry Awareness Fear Future Past
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.
JAMES THURBER

Dog Himself Level Man Success
You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.
JAMES THURBER

Face Fall Yourself
A burden in the bush is worth two on your hands.
JAMES THURBER

Burden Hands Worth
All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.
JAMES THURBER

Death Learning Man Strive Wisdom
It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.
JAMES THURBER

Answer Better Known Question
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

Act Move Myself Writing
One martini is all right. Two are too many, and three are not enough.
JAMES THURBER

Alcohol Drink Enough Right
Mutual suspicions of mental inadequacy are common during the first year of any marriage.
JAMES THURBER

Marriage Mutual Thinking
Where most of us end up there is no knowing, but the hellbent get where they are going.
JAMES THURBER

Destination Direction End Journey Path
Two is company, four is a party, three is a crowd. One is a wanderer.
JAMES THURBER

Company Crowd Party Travel Wanderer
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.
JAMES THURBER

Cleaning Hands Night Reason
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
Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation.
JAMES THURBER

Desperate Live Man Noisy
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
Unless artists can remember what it was to be a little boy, they are only half complete as artist and as man.
JAMES THURBER

Artist Childhood Man Remember
So much has already been written about everything that you can’t find out anything about it.
JAMES THURBER

Finding Writing Yourself
The most dangerous food is wedding cake.
JAMES THURBER

Cake Dangerous Food Marriage One Liner Sarcasm
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

Catch Herself Known Myself Poet Quite Writing
Don’t count your boobies until they are hatched.
JAMES THURBER

Body Count Patience Yourself
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
There are two kinds of light – the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.
JAMES THURBER

Deep Glow Illumination Kind Light
Time is for dragonflies and angels. The former live too little and the latter live too long.
JAMES THURBER

Angel Lifespan Time
The trouble with the lost generation is that it didn’t get lost enough.
JAMES THURBER

Enough Generation Lost Trouble
The dog has got more fun out of Man than Man has got out of the dog, for the clearly demonstrable reason that Man is the more laughable of the two animals
JAMES THURBER

Animal Dog Fun Laughter Man Reason
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 no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
JAMES THURBER

Mathematics Safety

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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When all things are equal, translucence in writing is more effective than transparency, just as glow is more revealing than glare.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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