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There are two kinds of light – the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.

James Thurber

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
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.
JAMES THURBER

Place Presence Right Woman Wrong
Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?
JAMES THURBER

Call Myself Number Phone Wrong Yourself
The unicorn is a mythical beast.
JAMES THURBER

Fantasy Myth Unicorn
It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.
JAMES THURBER

Answer Better Known Question
Time is for dragonflies and angels. The former live too little and the latter live too long.
JAMES THURBER

Angel Lifespan Time
All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.
JAMES THURBER

Death Learning Man Strive Wisdom
A false or misunderstood word may create as much disaster as a sudden thoughtless act.
JAMES THURBER

Act Creation Fake Misunderstanding Thinking
Don’t count your boobies until they are hatched.
JAMES THURBER

Body Count Patience Yourself
The trouble with the lost generation is that it didn’t get lost enough.
JAMES THURBER

Enough Generation Lost Trouble
Mutual suspicions of mental inadequacy are common during the first year of any marriage.
JAMES THURBER

Marriage Mutual Thinking
Man is flying too fast for a world that is round. Soon he will catch up with himself in a great rear end collision.
JAMES THURBER

Collision Fly Greatness Man World
Discussion in America means dissent.
JAMES THURBER

Country Discussion
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
Humor is a serious thing. I like to think of it as one of our greatest earliest natural resources, which must be preserved at all cost.
JAMES THURBER

Cost Greatness Humor Serious Thinking
Man 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 THURBER

Dog Happiness Man Strange Trouble
Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation.
JAMES THURBER

Desperate Live Man Noisy
When all things are equal, translucence in writing is more effective than transparency, just as glow is more revealing than glare.
JAMES THURBER

Effective Equality Reveal Writing
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
Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.
JAMES THURBER

Angry Awareness Fear Future Past
There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
JAMES THURBER

Mathematics Safety
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 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

Catch Herself Known Myself Poet Quite Writing
The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms -hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal.
JAMES THURBER

Heartless Laughter Man Tears Terrible
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
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

There are two kinds of light – the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.

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There are two kinds of light – the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.

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