Comedy has ceased to be a challenge to the mental processes. It has become a therapy of relaxation, a kind of tranquilizing drug.
JAMES THURBERUnless artists can remember what it was to be a little boy, they are only half complete as artist and as man.
More James Thurber Quotes
-
-
With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs.
JAMES THURBER -
Americans want to go to heaven without dying.
JAMES THURBER -
The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms -hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal.
JAMES THURBER -
Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more.
JAMES THURBER -
Beautiful things don’t ask for attention.
JAMES THURBER -
Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?
JAMES THURBER -
The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody’s guess.
JAMES THURBER -
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 -
Discussion in America means dissent.
JAMES THURBER -
Don’t get it right, just get it written.
JAMES THURBER -
When all things are equal, translucence in writing is more effective than transparency, just as glow is more revealing than glare.
JAMES THURBER -
So much has already been written about everything that you can’t find out anything about it.
JAMES THURBER -
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 -
A pinch of probability is worth a pound of perhaps.
JAMES THURBER -
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