James Thurber Quotes

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James Thurber

Profession : Author

Birth : December 8, 1894

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

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

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

James Thurber

We all have faults, and mine is being wicked.

James Thurber

Don't get it right, just get it written.

James Thurber

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

He who hesitates is sometimes saved.

James Thurber

It is better to have loafed and lost, than never to have loafed at all.

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

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

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

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

James Thurber

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

James Thurber

There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.

James Thurber

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

James Thurber

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

James Thurber

Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation.

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

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

James Thurber

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