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There is no exception to the rule that every rule has an exception.

James Thurber

A false or misunderstood word may create as much disaster as a sudden thoughtless act.
JAMES THURBER

Act Creation Fake Misunderstanding Thinking
One martini is all right. Two are too many, and three are not enough.
JAMES THURBER

Alcohol Drink Enough Right
Beautiful things don’t ask for attention.
JAMES THURBER

Attention Beautiful One Liner
The 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

Laughter People Tragedy
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
You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
JAMES THURBER

Fools People Time Yourself
I myself have known some profoundly thoughtful dogs.
JAMES THURBER

Animal Dog Myself Thinking
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
I can feel a thing I cannot touch and touch a thing I cannot feel. The first is sad and sorry, the second is your heart.
JAMES THURBER

Feeling Heart Sadness Sorry Touch Yourself
I never really rallied after the birth of my first child.
JAMES THURBER

Born Children Myself
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

Cross Desire Friendship Lost Street
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 exception to the rule that every rule has an exception.
JAMES THURBER

Exception Rule
The trouble with the lost generation is that it didn’t get lost enough.
JAMES THURBER

Enough Generation Lost Trouble
Let the meek inherit the earth — they have it coming to them.
JAMES THURBER

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

Angry Awareness Fear Future Past
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
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
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
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
Man has gone long enough, or even too long, without being man enough to face the simple truth that the trouble with man is man.
JAMES THURBER

Enough Hard Time Man Simplicity Trouble Truth
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
I am not a cat man, but a dog man, and all felines can tell this at a glance – a sharp, vindictive glance.
JAMES THURBER

Man Myself Sharp
Mutual suspicions of mental inadequacy are common during the first year of any marriage.
JAMES THURBER

Marriage Mutual Thinking
Art – the one achievement of man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised
JAMES THURBER

Achievement Advice Art Man
With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs.
JAMES THURBER

Definite Development Face Myself Structure
I think that maybe if women and children were in charge we would get somewhere.
JAMES THURBER

Children Position Thinking Woman

There is no exception to the rule that every rule has an exception.

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There is no exception to the rule that every rule has an exception.

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