A pinch of probability is worth a pound of perhaps.
JAMES THURBERIf I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.
More James Thurber Quotes
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The difference between our decadence and the Russians is that while theirs is brutal, ours is apathetic.
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I am not a cat man, but a dog man, and all felines can tell this at a glance – a sharp, vindictive glance.
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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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When all things are equal, translucence in writing is more effective than transparency, just as glow is more revealing than glare.
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I never really rallied after the birth of my first child.
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You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.
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With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs.
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Boys are beyond the range of anybody’s sure understanding, at least when they are between the ages of 18 months and 90 years.
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Don’t count your boobies until they are hatched.
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I was seized by the stern hand of Compulsion, that dark, unreasonable Urge that impels women to clean house in the middle of the night.
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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.
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Progress was all right. Only it went on too long.
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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.
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Man is flying too fast for a world that is round. Soon he will catch up with himself in a great rear end collision.
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Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.
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Writers of comedy have outlook, whereas writers of tragedy have, according to them, insight.
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Art – the one achievement of man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised
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There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
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Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more.
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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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You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
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The 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.
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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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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.
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Americans want to go to heaven without dying.
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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