All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.
JAMES THURBERAll men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.
JAMES THURBERI 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 THURBERWriters of comedy have outlook, whereas writers of tragedy have, according to them, insight.
JAMES THURBERThe past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody’s guess.
JAMES THURBERI 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 THURBERThe 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 THURBERNowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation.
JAMES THURBERThere 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 THURBERI 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 THURBERA pinch of probability is worth a pound of perhaps.
JAMES THURBERThe unicorn is a mythical beast.
JAMES THURBERThere is no exception to the rule that every rule has an exception.
JAMES THURBERIf you wonder which is the stronger sex, watch which one twists the other around her little finger.
JAMES THURBERDon’t get it right, just get it written.
JAMES THURBERComedy 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 THURBERI 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