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Things have dropped from me. I have outlived certain desires; I have lost friends, some by death… others through sheer inability to cross the street.

James Thurber

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.
JAMES THURBER

Clear Comedy Famous Imagination Point
Two is company, four is a party, three is a crowd. One is a wanderer.
JAMES THURBER

Company Crowd Party Travel Wanderer
One martini is all right. Two are too many, and three are not enough.
JAMES THURBER

Alcohol Drink Enough Right
Progress was all right. Only it went on too long.
JAMES THURBER

Progress Right Time
If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.
JAMES THURBER

Belief Dog Heaven Immortal Known Myself Person
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
Writers of comedy have outlook, whereas writers of tragedy have, according to them, insight.
JAMES THURBER

Insight Tragedy Wisdom Writing
Let the meek inherit the earth — they have it coming to them.
JAMES THURBER

Come Earth Inheritance Weakness
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
I think that maybe if women and children were in charge we would get somewhere.
JAMES THURBER

Children Position Thinking Woman
Comedy has ceased to be a challenge to the mental processes. It has become a therapy of relaxation, a kind of tranquilizing drug.
JAMES THURBER

Challenge Comedy Drugs Therapy
There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
JAMES THURBER

Mathematics Safety
The difference between our decadence and the Russians is that while theirs is brutal, ours is apathetic.
JAMES THURBER

Brutal Difference Ourselves
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.
JAMES THURBER

Disturb Himself Listening Reason
The trouble with the lost generation is that it didn’t get lost enough.
JAMES THURBER

Enough Generation Lost Trouble
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

Things have dropped from me. I have outlived certain desires; I have lost friends, some by death… others through sheer inability to cross the street.

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Things have dropped from me. I have outlived certain desires; I have lost friends, some by death… others through sheer inability to cross the street.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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