James Thurber Quotes

Author Image

James Thurber

Profession : Author

Birth : December 8, 1894

Love is what you've been through with somebody.

James Thurber

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.

James Thurber

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

James Thurber

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

James Thurber

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

James Thurber

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

James Thurber

Progress was all right. Only it went on too long.

James Thurber

Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.

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

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.

James Thurber

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

James Thurber

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

James Thurber

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

James Thurber

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

James Thurber

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

James Thurber

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

James Thurber

You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.

James Thurber

The most dangerous food is wedding cake.

James Thurber

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

James Thurber

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

James Thurber