Top quotes by James Thurber

Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness. Votes: 22

The animals that depend on instinct have an inherent knowledge of the laws of economics and of how to apply them; Man, with his powers of reason, has reduced economics to the level of a farce which is at once funnier and more tragic than Tobacco Road. Votes: 19

The most dangerous food is wedding cake. Votes: 18

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. Votes: 17

My opposition to Interviews lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral give and take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language. Votes: 14

But what is all this fear of and opposition to Oblivion? What is the matter with the soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep? Votes: 14

Boys are beyond the range of anybody's sure understanding, at least when they are between the ages of 18 months and 90 years. Votes: 14

I used to wake up at 4 A.M. and start sneezing, sometimes for five hours. I tried to find out what sort of allergy I had but finally came to the conclusion that it must be an allergy to consciousness. Votes: 14

The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody's guess. Votes: 14

I am not a cat man, but a dog man, and all felines can tell this at a glance - a sharp, vindictive glance. Votes: 13

Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone? Votes: 13

If a playwright tried to see eye to eye with everybody, he would get the worst case of strabismus since Hannibal lost an eye trying to count his nineteen elephants during a snowstorm while crossing the Alps. Votes: 12

Love is the strange bewilderment that overtakes one person on account of another person. Votes: 11

The difference between our decadence and the Russians is that while theirs is brutal, ours is apathetic. Votes: 11

I'm 65 and I guess that puts me in with the geriatrics. But if there were fifteen months in every year, I'd only be 48. That's the trouble with us. We number everything. Take women, for example. I think they deserve to have more than twelve years between the ages of 28 and 40. Votes: 10

Last night I dreamed of a small consolation enjoyed only by the blind: Nobody knows the trouble I've not seen! Votes: 10

Don't get it right, just get it written. Votes: 10

The appreciative smile, the chuckle, the soundless mirth, so important to the success of comedy, cannot be understood unless one sits among the audience and feels the warmth created by the quality of laughter that the audience takes home with it. Votes: 10

It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers. Votes: 9

Early to rise and early to bed makes a man healthy, wealthy, and dead. Votes: 8

Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that can happen to a man. Votes: 8

There is no exception to the rule that every rule has an exception. Votes: 8

There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else. Votes: 7

Laughter need not be cut out of anything, since it improves everything. Votes: 7

They've got him!" squealed the DukeEleven men to one!""You may have heard of Galahad," said Hark, "whose strength was as the strength of ten.""That leaves one man to get him," cried the Duke." Votes: 7

Some American writers who have known each other for years have never met in the daytime or when both were sober. Votes: 6

If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons. Votes: 5

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. Votes: 3

I hate women because they always know where things are. Votes: 2

There was an old coddle so molly,He talked in a glot that was poly,His gaws were so gewThat his laps became dew,And he ate only pops that were lolly." Votes: 1

I make mistakes, but I am on the side of Good," the Golux said, "by accident and happenchance. I had high hopes of being Evil when I was two, but in my youth I came upon a firefly burning in a spider's web. I saved the victim's life." "The firefly's ?" said the minstrel. "The spider's. The blinking arsonist had set the web on fire. Votes: 0

The sanity of the average banquet speaker lasts about two and a half months; at the end of that time he begins to mutter to himself, and calls out in his sleep. Votes: 0

Beautiful things don't ask for attention. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

It's a naive domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption. Votes: 0

Sophistication might be described as the ability to cope gracefully with a situation involving the presence of a formidable menace to one's poise and prestige (such as the butler, or the man under the bed - but never the husband). Votes: 0

A drawing is always dragged down to the level of its caption. Votes: 0

(Cartoon caption:) I never really rallied after the birth of my first child. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

History is replete with proofs, from Cato the Elder to Kennedy the Younger, that if you scratch a statesman you find an actor, but it is becoming harder and harder, in our time, to tell government from show business. Votes: 0

Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility. Votes: 0

Sanity, soundness, and sincerity, of which gleams and strains can still be found in the human brain under powerful microscopes, flourish only in a culture of clarification, which is now becoming harder and harder to detect with the naked eye. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Man is flying too fast for a world that is round. Soon he will catch up with himself in a great rear end collision. Votes: 0

Columbus is a town in which almost anything is likely to happen, and in which almost everything has. Votes: 0

Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation. Votes: 0

Discussion in America means dissent. Votes: 0

Time is for dragonflies and angels. The former live too little and the latter live too long. Votes: 0

Love is blind, but desire just doesn't give a good goddamn Votes: 0

All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why. Votes: 0

You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward. Votes: 0

You are all a lost generation," Gertrude Stein said to Hemingway. We weren't lost. We knew where we were, all right, but we wouldn't go home. Ours was the generation that stayed up all night. Votes: 0

There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures. Votes: 0

Speed is scarcely the noblest virtue of graphic composition, but it has its curious rewards. There is a sense of getting somewhere fast, which satisfies a native American urge. Votes: 0

All men kill the thing they hate, too, unless, of course, it kills them first. Votes: 0

Human Dignity has gleamed only now and then and here and there, in lonely splendor, throughout the ages, a hope of the better men, never an achievement of the majority. Votes: 0

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself, but in so doing, he identifies himself with people - that is, people everywhere, not for the purpose of taking them apart, but simply revealing their true nature. Votes: 0

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

He who hesitates is sometimes saved. Votes: 0

Humor does not include sarcasm, invalid irony, sardonicism, innuendo, or any other form of cruelty. When these things are raised to a high point they can become wit, but unlike the French and the English, we have not been much good at wit since the days of Benjamin Franklin. Votes: 0

The only rules comedy can tolerate are those of taste, and the only limitations those of libel. Votes: 0

It did not take Man long-probably not more than a hundred centuries-to discover that all the animals except the dog were impossible around the house. One has but to spend a few days with an aardvark or llama, command a water buffalo to sit up and beg or try to housebreak a moose, to perceive how wisely Man set about his process of elimination and selection. Votes: 0

The trouble with the lost generation is that it didn't get lost enough. Votes: 0

A word to the wise is not sufficient if it doesn't make sense. Votes: 0

One martini is all right. Two are too many, and three are not enough. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else? Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs. Votes: 0

Humor and pathos, tears and laughter are, in the highest expression of human character and achievement, inseparable. Votes: 0

I don't remember any blue poodles. Votes: 0

In an extensive reading of recent books by psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, and inspirationalists, I have discovered that they all suffer from one or more of these expression-complexes: italicizing, capitalizing, exclamation-pointing, multiple-interrogating, and itemizing. These are all forms of what the psychos themselves would call, if they faced their condition frankly, Rhetorical-Over-Compensation. Votes: 0

Let the meek inherit the earth - they have it coming to them Votes: 0

There was a mist of moss to ride through and a storm of glass. Votes: 0

Taking a single letter from the alphaber," he said, "should make life simpler.""I don't see why. Take the F from life and you have lie. It's adding a letter to simple that makes it simpler. Taking a letter from hoarder makes it harder. Votes: 0

...the Princess Saralinda thought she saw, as people often think they see, on clear and windless days, the distant shining shores of Ever After. Your guess is quite as good as mine (there are a lot of things that shine) but I have always thought she did, and I will always think so. Votes: 0

Sixty minutes of thinking of any kind is bound to lead to confusion and unhappiness. Votes: 0

Though statisticians in our time have never kept the score, Man wants a great deal here below and Woman even more. Votes: 0

Salvador [Dali] was brought up in Spain, a country colored by the legends of Hannibal, El Greco, and Cervantes. I was brought up in Ohio, a region steeped in the tradition of Coxey's Army, the Anti-Saloon League, and William Howard Taft. Votes: 0

It was Lisa, aged five, whose mother asked her to thank my wife for the peas we had sent them from our garden. 'I thought the peas were awful, I wish you and Mrs. Thurber were dead, and I hate trees,' said Lisa. Votes: 0

A wet dog is lovingest. Votes: 0

Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more. Votes: 0

The difference between our decadence and the Russians' is that while theirs is brutal, ours is apathetic. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Unless artists can remember what it was to be a little boy, they are only half complete as artist and as man. Votes: 0

You can fool too many of the people too much of the time. Votes: 0

A false or misunderstood word may create as much disaster as a sudden thoughtless act. Votes: 0

A burden in the bush is worth two on your hands. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Art "“ the one achievement of man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised Votes: 0

Love is what you've been through with somebody. Votes: 0

I never had a dog that showed a human fear of death. Death, to a dog, is the final unavoidable compulsion, the least ineluctable scent on a fearsome trail, but they like to face it alone, going out into the woods, among the leaves, if there are any leaves when their time comes, enduring without sentimental human distraction the Last Loneliness, which they are wise enough to know cannot be shared by anyone. Votes: 0

Two is company, four is a party, three is a crowd. One is a wanderer. Votes: 0

I think that maybe if women and children were in charge we would get somewhere. Votes: 0

Reason is 6/7 of treason. Votes: 0

Let me be the first to admit that the naked truth about me is to the naked truth about Salvador Dali as an old ukulele in the attic is to a piano in a tree, and I mean a piano with breasts. Senor Dali has the jump on me from the beginning. He remembers and describes in detail what it was like in the womb. My own earliest memory is of accompanying my father to a polling booth in Columbus, Ohio, where he voted for William McKinley. Votes: 0

I always begin at the left with the opening word of the sentence and read toward the right and I recommend this method. Votes: 0

When all things are equal, translucence in writing is more effective than transparency, just as glow is more revealing than glare. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

Every time is a time for comedy in a world of tension that would languish without it. But I cannot confine myself to lightness in a period of human life that demands light ... We all know that, as the old adage has it, "It is later than you think." ..., but I also say occasionally: "It is lighter than you think." In this light let's not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but around in awareness. Votes: 0

Every man is occasionally visited by the suspicion that the planet on which he is riding is not really going anywhere; that the Force which controls its measured eccentricities hasn't got anything special in mind. If he broods on this somber theme long enough he gets the doleful idea that the laughing children on a merry-go-round or the thin, fine hands of a lady's watch are revolving more purposely than he is. Votes: 0

God bless... God damn. Votes: 0

He had as much fun in the water as any person I have known. You didn't have to throw a stick in the water to get him to go in. Of course, he would bring back a stick to you if you did throw one in. He would even have brought back a piano if you had thrown one in. Votes: 0

We are a nation that has always gone in for the loud laugh, the wow, the yak, the belly laugh, and the dozen other labels for the roll- em-in-the-aisles gagerissimo. This is the kind of laugh that delights actors, directors, and producers, but dismays writers of comedy because it is the laugh that often dies in the lobby. The appreciative smile, the chuckle, the soundless mirth, so important to the success of comedy, cannot be understood unless one sits among the audience and feels the warmth created by the quality of laughter that the audience takes home with it. Votes: 0

A peril of the night road is that flecks of dust and streaks of bug blood on the windshield look to me like old admirals in uniform, or crippled apple women, or the front edge of barges, and I whirl out of their way, thus going into ditches and fields and up on front lawns, endangering the life of authentic admirals and apple women who may be out on the roads for a breath of air before retiring. Votes: 0

We all know that the theater and every play that comes to Broadway have within themselves, like the human being, the seed of self-destruction and the certainty of death. The thing is to see how long the theater, the play, and the human being can last in spite of themselves. Votes: 0

Ours is a precarious language, as every writer knows, in which the merest shadow line often separates affirmation from negation, sense from nonsense, and one sex from the other Votes: 0

Comedy has ceased to be a challenge to the mental processes. It has become a therapy of relaxation, a kind of tranquilizing drug. Votes: 0

I don't believe the writer should know too much where he's going. If he does, he runs into old man blueprint—old man propaganda. Votes: 0

If you are a police dog, where's your badge? Votes: 0

Remember laughter. You'll need it even in the blessed isles of Ever After. Votes: 0

Americans want to go to heaven without dying. Votes: 0

Writers of comedy have outlook, whereas writers of tragedy have, according to them, insight. Votes: 0

Quick, name some towns in New Jersey Votes: 0

Mutual suspicions of mental inadequacy are common during the first year of any marriage. Votes: 0

This is the posture of fortunes slave: one foot in the gravy, one foot in the grave. Votes: 0

I'm sixty-five and I guess that puts me in with the geriatrics, but if there were fifteen months in every year, I'd only be forty-eight. Votes: 0

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 Votes: 0

Those rare souls whose spirit gets magically into the hearts of men leave behind them something real and warmly personal... the grace of a fine spirit pervades the places through which it has passed, like the haunting loveliness of mignonette. Votes: 0

One has but to observe a community of beavers at work in a stream to understand the loss in his sagacity, balance, co-operation, competence, and purpose which Man has suffered since he rose up on his hind legs. He began to chatter and he developed Reason, Thought, and Imagination, qualities which would get the smartest group of rabbits or orioles in the world into inextricable trouble overnight. Votes: 0

The unicorn is a mythical beast, Votes: 0

Editing should be, especially in the case of old writers, a counselling rather than a collaborating task. The tendency of the writer-editor to collaborate is natural, but he should say to himself, 'How can I help this writer to say it better in his own style?' and avoid 'How can I show him how I would write it, if it were my piece?' Votes: 0

In the pathways between office and home and home and the houses of settled people there are always, ready to snap at you, the little perils of routine living, but there is no escape in the unplanned tangent, the sudden turn. Votes: 0

She wasn't much to look at but she was something to think about. Votes: 0

A lady of 47 who has been married 27 years and has six children knows what love really is and once described it for me like this: 'Love is what you've been through with somebody'. Votes: 0

American girls often marry someone they can't stand to spite someone they can. Votes: 0

So much has already been written about everything that you can't find out anything about it. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

For one thing, she pronounced flowers 'flars' and I couldn't let it slide. Votes: 0

The paths of glory at least lead to the Grave, but the paths of duty may not get you Anywhere. Votes: 0

I can feel a thing I cannot touch and touch a thing I cannot feel. The first is sad and sorry, the second is your heart. Votes: 0

What would you do without me? Say 'nothing.'" "Nothing," said the Prince. "Good. Then you're helpless and I'll help you. Votes: 0

Where most of us end up there is no knowing, but the hellbent get where they are going. Votes: 0

Most of the faint intimations of immortality of which we are occasionally aware would seem to arise out of Art or the materials of Art. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

My drawings have been described as pre-internationalist, meaning that they were finished before the ideas for them had occurred to me. I shall not argue the point. Votes: 0

Looks can be deceiving; it's eating that's believing. Votes: 0

The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa. Votes: 0

Don't count your boobies until they are hatched. Votes: 0

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. Votes: 0

I have the reputation for having read all of Henry James. Which would argue a misspent youth and middle age. Votes: 0

At forty my faculties may have closed up like flowers at evening, leaving me unable to write my memoirs with a fitting and discreet inaccuracy, or, having written them, unable to carry them to the publisher. Votes: 0

Progress was all right. Only it went on too long. Votes: 0

I hate women because they have brought into the currency of our language such expressions as "all righty" and "yes indeedy" and hundreds of others. Votes: 0

Youcanfooltoomanyofthepeopletoomuchofthetime. See Lincoln 510:35. Votes: 0

The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms -hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal. Votes: 0

Dogs are obsessed with being happy. Votes: 0

Muggs was always sorry, Mother said, when he bit someone, but we could never understand how she figured this out. He didn't act sorry. Votes: 0

I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand. Votes: 0

When man gives up on reforming and inspiring society he also gives up his freedom. Votes: 0

Let the meek inherit the earth -- they have it coming to them. Votes: 0

The Old Man ain't afraid of hell Votes: 0

A woman's place is in the wrong. Votes: 0

If I have sometimes seemed to make fun of Woman, I assure you it has only been for the purpose of egging her on. Votes: 0

We all have faults, and mine is being wicked. Votes: 0

I love the idea of there being two sexes, don't you? Votes: 0

A pinch of probability is worth a pound of perhaps. Votes: 0

I myself have known some profoundly thoughtful dogs. Votes: 0

I drew pictures rapidly and with few lines, because I had to write most of the pieces, too, and couldn't monkey long with the drawings. The divine urge was no higher than that. Votes: 0

A husband should not insult his wife publicly, at parties. He should insult her in the privacy of the home. Votes: 0

The whole of Paris is a vast university of Art, Literature and Music... it is worth anyone's while to dally here for years. Paris is a seminar, a post-graduate course in everything. Votes: 0

If you wonder which is the stronger sex, watch which one twists the other around her little finger. Votes: 0

I have figured for you the distance between the horns of a dilemma, night and day, and A and Z. I have computed how far is Up, how long it takes to get Away, and what becomes of Gone. I have discovered the length of the sea serpent, the price of priceless, and the square of the hippopotamus. I know where you are when you are at Sixes and Sevens, how much Is you have to have to make an Are, and how many birds you can catch with the salt in the ocean - 187,796,132, if it would interest you. Votes: 0

No male can beat a female in the long run because they have it over us in sheer, damn longevity. Votes: 0

Women deserve to have more than 12 years between 28 and 40. Votes: 0

I write humor the way a surgeon operates, because it is a livelihood, because I have a great urge to do it, because many interesting challenges are set up, and because I have the hope it may do some good. Votes: 0

My grandmother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house. It leaked, she contended, out of empty sockets if the wall switch had been left on. She would go around screwing in bulbs, and if they lighted up, she would fearfully turn off the wall switch and go back to her Pearson's or Everybody's, happy in the satisfaction that she had stopped not only a costly but dangerous leakage. nothing could ever clear this up for her. Votes: 0

Hundreds of hysterical persons must confuse these phenomena with messages from the beyond and take their glory to the bishop rather than the eye doctor. Votes: 0

It takes that je ne sais quoi which we call sophistication for a woman to be magnificent in a drawing-room when her faculties have departed but she herself has not yet gone home. Votes: 0

He knows all about art, but he doesn't know what he likes. Votes: 0

Until a man can quit talking loudly to himself in order to shout down the memories of blunderings and gropings, he is in no shape for the painstaking examination of distress. Votes: 0

Authors of light pieces have, nobody knows why, a genius for getting into minor difficulties: they walk into the wrong apartments, they drink furniture polish for stomach bitters, they drive their cars into the prize tulip beds of haughty neighbors, they playfully slap gangsters, mistaking them for old school friends. Votes: 0

These are the days of bootleg love. Votes: 0

Men are more interesting than women, but women ae more fascinating. Votes: 0

It had only one fault. It was kind of lousy. Votes: 0

I loathe the expression "What makes him tick." It is the American mind, looking for simple and singular solutions, that uses the foolish expression. A person not only ticks, he also chimes and strikes the hour, falls and breaks and has to be put together again, and sometimes stops like an electric clock in a thunderstorm. Votes: 0

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 Votes: 0

Surely no other American institution is so bound around and tightened up by rules, strictures, adages, and superstitions as the Broadway theatre. Votes: 0