James Thurber Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• 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

  Dog, Successful, Animal

  James Thurber (1955). “Thurber's Dog's: A Collection of the Master's Dogs”

  39 Copy quote

• Humor does not include sarcasm, invalid irony, sardonicism, innuendo, or any other form of cruelty. When these things are raised to a high point they can become wit, but unlike the French and the English, we have not been much good at wit since the days of Benjamin Franklin.

  James Thurber

  Humor, Sarcasm, Doe

  26 Copy quote

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

  James Thurber

  Kindness, Thinking, Sixty Minutes

  James Thurber (1996). “James Thurber: Writings & Drawings (including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty)”, p.392, Library of America

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• The trouble with the lost generation is that it didn't get lost enough.

  James Thurber

  Generations, Modern Life, Trouble

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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.

  James Thurber

  Humor, Artist, Depth

  James Thurber (1990). “Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself”

  45 Copy quote

• 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

  Humor, People, Laughing

  James Thurber (1990). “Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself”

  24 Copy quote

• Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.

  James Thurber

  Inspirational, Humor, Emotional

  The New York Post, February 29, 1960.

  76 Copy quote

• 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

  Humor, Thinking, Hair

  10 Copy quote

• The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself, but in so doing, he identifies himself with people - that is, people everywhere, not for the purpose of taking them apart, but simply revealing their true nature.

  James Thurber

  Nature, Fun, People

  Interview with Edward R. Murrow on "Small World", CBS-TV, March 25, 1959.

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• The act of writing is either something the writer dreads or actually likes, and I actually like it. Even re-writing's fun. You're getting somewhere, whether it seems to move or not.

  James Thurber

  Fun, Moving, Writing

  James Thurber (1990). “Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself”

  26 Copy quote

• I myself have known some profoundly thoughtful dogs.

  James Thurber

  Dog, Thoughtful, Puppy

  22 Copy quote

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

  James Thurber

  Funny, Witty, Humorous

  14 Copy quote

• Love is what you've been through with somebody.

  James Thurber

  Love, Marriage, Valentines Day

  27 Copy quote

• But those rare souls whose spirit gets magically into the hearts of men, leave behind them something more real and warmly personal than bodily presence, an ineffable and eternal thing. It is everlasting life touching us as something more than a vague, recondite concept. The sound of a great name dies like an echo; the splendor of fame fades into nothing; but the grace of a fine spirit pervades the places through which it has passed, like the haunting loveliness of mignonette.

  James Thurber

  Real, Heart, Men

  "Collecting Himself". Book by James Thurber, 1989.

  17 Copy quote

• 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

  Travel, Airplane, Men

  James Thurber (1956). “Further fables for our time”

  13 Copy quote

• 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

  Dog, Nature, Animal

  38 Copy quote

• The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody's guess.

  James Thurber

  Past, Sound, Comedy

  23 Copy quote

• 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

  Writing, Editing, Editors

  James Thurber (1990). “Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself”

  14 Copy quote

• Women deserve to have more than 12 years between 28 and 40.

  James Thurber

  Years, Deserve

  7 Copy quote

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

  James Thurber

  Inspirational Life, Writing, Comedy

  James Thurber (1996). “James Thurber: Writings & Drawings (including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty)”, p.562, Library of America

  11 Copy quote

• We are a nation that has always gone in for the loud laugh, the wow, the yak, the belly laugh, and the dozen other labels for the roll- em-in-the-aisles gagerissimo. This is the kind of laugh that delights actors, directors, and producers, but dismays writers of comedy because it is the laugh that often dies in the lobby. 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

  Laughter, War, Home

  James Thurber (1990). “Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself”

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• Let me be the first to admit that the naked truth about me is to the naked truth about Salvador Dali as an old ukulele in the attic is to a piano in a tree, and I mean a piano with breasts. Senor Dali has the jump on me from the beginning. He remembers and describes in detail what it was like in the womb. My own earliest memory is of accompanying my father to a polling booth in Columbus, Ohio, where he voted for William McKinley.

  James Thurber

  Memories, Father, Mean

  JAMES THURBER (1945). “THE THURBER CARNIVAL”

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• Let the meek inherit the earth -- they have it coming to them.

  James Thurber

  Funny, Humor, Modern Life

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• Every time is a time for comedy in a world of tension that would languish without it. But I cannot confine myself to lightness in a period of human life that demands light. We all know that, as the old adage has it, "It is later than you think." But I also say occasionally: "It is lighter than you think." In this light let's not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but around in awareness.

  James Thurber

  Thinking, Light, Looks

  "Lanterns and Lances". Book by James Thurber. Foreword, 1961.

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• Remember laughter. You'll need it even in the blessed isles of Ever After.

  James Thurber

  Laughter, Blessed, Needs

  James Thurber (1996). “Writings and Drawings”, Library of America

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