James Thurber Quotes
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Editing should be, especially in the case of old writers, a counseling 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?'
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I hate women because they always know where things are.
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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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Moral: Where most of us end up there is no knowing, but the hellbent get where they are going.
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He who hesitates is sometimes saved.
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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).
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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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Progress was all right. Only it went on too long.
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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 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.
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From now on, I think it is safe to predict, neither the Democratic nor the Republican Party will ever nominate for President a candidate without good looks, stage presence, theatrical delivery, and a sense of timing.
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It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.
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Discussion in America means dissent.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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A pinch of probability is worth a pound of perhaps.
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The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal.
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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.
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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.
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Last night I dreamed of a small consolation enjoyed only by the blind: Nobody knows the trouble I've not seen!
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Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.
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Love is blind, but desire just doesn't give a good goddam. sic