You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.
JAMES THURBERYou might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.
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 THURBERSo much has already been written about everything that you can’t find out anything about it.
JAMES THURBERThe trouble with the lost generation is that it didn’t get lost enough.
JAMES THURBERThe difference between our decadence and the Russians is that while theirs is brutal, ours is apathetic.
JAMES THURBERThe nation that complacently and fearfully allows its artists and writers to become suspected rather than respected is no longer regarded as a nation possessed with humor or depth.
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 THURBERThere is no exception to the rule that every rule has an exception.
JAMES THURBERMan 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 THURBERThe past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody’s guess.
JAMES THURBERTwo is company, four is a party, three is a crowd. One is a wanderer.
JAMES THURBERA false or misunderstood word may create as much disaster as a sudden thoughtless act.
JAMES THURBERArt – the one achievement of man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised
JAMES THURBERI 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 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 THURBERThe 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