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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
