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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

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 is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.
JAMES THURBER

Chaos Emotional Humor Remember Tranquility
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
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
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.
JAMES THURBER

Believe Born Leadership Poet
There are two kinds of light – the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.
JAMES THURBER

Deep Glow Illumination Kind Light
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
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
A false or misunderstood word may create as much disaster as a sudden thoughtless act.
JAMES THURBER

Act Creation Fake Misunderstanding Thinking
There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
JAMES THURBER

Mathematics Safety
One martini is all right. Two are too many, and three are not enough.
JAMES THURBER

Alcohol Drink Enough Right
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
Americans want to go to heaven without dying.
JAMES THURBER

Death Deep Heaven Hypocrisy Sarcasm
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
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
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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