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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.
James Thurber -
You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
James Thurber
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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.
James Thurber -
When all things are equal, translucence in writing is more effective than transparency, just as glow is more revealing than glare.
James Thurber -
But what is all this fear of and opposition to Oblivion? What is the matter with the soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep?
James Thurber -
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 -
Discussion in America means dissent.
James Thurber -
A pinch of probability is worth a pound of perhaps.
James Thurber
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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).
James Thurber -
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.
James Thurber -
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.
James Thurber -
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 -
It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.
James Thurber -
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
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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!
James Thurber -
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 -
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.
James Thurber -
Progress was all right. Only it went on too long.
James Thurber -
The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody's guess.
James Thurber -
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.
James Thurber
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Unless artists can remember what it was to be a little boy, they are only half complete as artist and as man.
James Thurber -
Don't count your boobies until they are hatched.
James Thurber -
Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else?
James Thurber -
He knows all about art, but he doesn't know what he likes.
James Thurber