She wasn’t much to look at but she was something to think about.
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.
More James Thurber Quotes
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Where most of us end up there is no knowing, but the hellbent get where they are going.
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I have lived in the East for nearly thirty years now, but many of my books prove that I am never very far away from Ohio in my thoughts, and that the clocks that strike in my dreams are often the clocks of Columbus.
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Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more.
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Let the meek inherit the earth — they have it coming to them.
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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.
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Comedy has ceased to be a challenge to the mental processes. It has become a therapy of relaxation, a kind of tranquilizing drug.
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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.
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There is something about a poet which leads us to believe that he died, in many cases, as long as 20 years before his birth.
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I always begin at the left with the opening word of the sentence and read toward the right and I recommend this method.
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A false or misunderstood word may create as much disaster as a sudden thoughtless act.
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The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody’s guess.
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Sixty minutes of thinking of any kind is bound to lead to confusion and unhappiness.
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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.
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Discussion in America means dissent.
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I don’t believe the writer should know too much where he’s going. If he does, he runs into old man blueprintold man propaganda.
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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.
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Somebody has said that woman’s place is in the wrong. That’s fine. What the wrong needs is a woman’s presence and a woman’s touch. She is far better equipped than men to set it right.
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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.
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The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself.
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The dog has got more fun out of Man than Man has got out of the dog, for the clearly demonstrable reason that Man is the more laughable of the two animals
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If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.
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Progress was all right. Only it went on too long.
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Don’t get it right, just get it written.
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Two is company, four is a party, three is a crowd. One is a wanderer.
JAMES THURBER -
Humor and pathos, tears and laughter are, in the highest expression of human character and achievement, inseparable.
JAMES THURBER -
So much has already been written about everything that you can’t find out anything about it.
JAMES THURBER