Best Thurber Quotes & Sayings

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 — James Thurber

Many of the writers who have inspired me most are outside the genre: Humorists like Robert Benchley and James Thurber, screenwriters like Ben Hecht and William Goldman, and journalists/columnists like H.L. Mencken, Mike Royko and Molly Ivins. — John Scalzi

Comedy has ceased to be a challenge to the mental processes. It has become a therapy of relaxation, a kind of tranquilizing drug. — James Thurber

The Old Man ain't afraid of hell — 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

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. — James Thurber

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

At least she's not guilty of integrity, and that's more than I can say of any Bell in four generations except my grandfather and myself. — James Thurber

Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy, wealthy, and dead. — James Thurber

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. — James Thurber

Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility. — James Thurber

Something very much like nothing anyone had ever seen before came trotting down the stairs and crossed the room.
"What is that?" the Duke asked, palely.
"I don't know what it is," said Hark, "but it's the only one there ever was. — James Thurber

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

You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
Fables for Our Time, Moral of "The Owl Who Was God" (1940) — James Thurber

Humor and pathos, tears and laughter are, in the highest expression of human character and achievement, inseparable. — James Thurber

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. — James Thurber

Women deserve to have more than 12 years between 28 and 40. — James Thurber

Last night I dreamed of a small consolation enjoyed only by the blind: Nobody knows the trouble I've not seen. — James Thurber

A drawing is always dragged down to the level of its caption.
A word to the wise is not sufficient if it doesn't make sense. — James Thurber

Don't get it right, just get it written. — James Thurber

There was a mist of moss to ride through and a storm of glass. — James Thurber

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. — James Thurber

Mutual suspicions of mental inadequacy are common during the first year of any marriage. — 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

Well, I'm disenchanted, too. We're all disenchanted. — James Thurber

He who hesitates is sometimes saved. — James Thurber

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. — James Thurber

Hens embarrass me; owls disturb me; if I am with an eagle I always pretend that I am not with an eagle; and so on down to swallows at twilight who scare the hell out of me. But pigeons have absolutely no effect on me. — James Thurber

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?' — James Thurber