James Thurber Quotes - Page 5

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• Somebody has said that woman's place is in the wrong. That's fine. What the wrong needs is a woman's presence and a woman's touch. She is far better equipped than men to set it right.

  James Thurber

  Men, Needs, Said

  James Thurber (1961). “Lanterns & Lances”, New York : Harper

  4 Copy quote

• The unicorn is a mythical beast.

  James Thurber

  Mythical Beasts, Unicorn, Beast

  James Thurber (1996). “James Thurber: Writings & Drawings (including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty)”, p.587, Library of America

  54 Copy quote

• I was seized by the stern hand of Compulsion, that dark, unreasonable Urge that impels women to clean house in the middle of the night.

  James Thurber

  Funny, Humor, Dark

  1957 Alarms and Diversions,'There's A Time For Flags'.

  7 Copy quote

• If I have sometimes seemed to make fun of Woman, I assure you it has only been for the purpose of egging her on.

  James Thurber

  Fun, Women, Purpose

  James Thurber (1961). “Lanterns & Lances”, New York : Harper

  4 Copy quote

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

  James Thurber

  Inspirational, Funny, Fall

  New Yorker 29 Apr. 1939 "The Bear Who Let It Alone"

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  Witty, Stupid, Trying

  Letter to Malcolm Cowley on March 11, 1954. "Collecting Himself". Book by James Thurber, 1989.

  12 Copy quote

• 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

  Humor, Drug, Challenges

  10 Copy quote

• My grandmother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house. It leaked, she contended, out of empty sockets if the wall switch had been left on. She would go around screwing in bulbs, and if they lighted up, she would fearfully turn off the wall switch and go back to her Pearson's or Everybody's, happy in the satisfaction that she had stopped not only a costly but dangerous leakage. nothing could ever clear this up for her.

  James Thurber

  Wall, Grandmother, Years

  7 Copy quote

• It did not take Man long-probably not more than a hundred centuries-to discover that all the animals except the dog were impossible around the house. One has but to spend a few days with an aardvark or llama, command a water buffalo to sit up and beg or try to housebreak a moose, to perceive how wisely Man set about his process of elimination and selection.

  James Thurber

  Dog, Men, Animal

  James Thurber (1996). “James Thurber: Writings & Drawings (including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty)”, p.955, Library of America

  7 Copy quote

• I make mistakes, but I am on the side of Good," the Golux said, "by accident and happenchance. I had high hopes of being Evil when I was two, but in my youth I came upon a firefly burning in a spider's web. I saved the victim's life." "The firefly's ?" said the minstrel. "The spider's. The blinking arsonist had set the web on fire.

  James Thurber

  Mistake, Firefly, Two

  9 Copy quote

• A peril of the night road is that flecks of dust and streaks of bug blood on the windshield look to me like old admirals in uniform, or crippled apple women, or the front edge of barges, and I whirl out of their way, thus going into ditches and fields and up on front lawns, endangering the life of authentic admirals and apple women who may be out on the roads for a breath of air before retiring.

  James Thurber

  Night, Apples, Air

  James Thurber, Harrison Kinney, Rosemary A. Thurber (2002). “The Thurber letters: the wit, wisdom, and surprising life of James Thurber”, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• I can feel a thing I cannot touch and touch a thing I cannot feel. The first is sad and sorry, the second is your heart.

  James Thurber

  Sorry, Heart, Firsts

  James Thurber (1996). “James Thurber: Writings & Drawings (including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty)”, p.839, Library of America

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  Lying, Expression, Giving

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

  8 Copy quote

• A woman's place is in the wrong.

  James Thurber

  Women

  James Thurber, Thomas Fensch (1989). “Conversations with James Thurber”, p.89, Univ. Press of Mississippi

  4 Copy quote

• (Cartoon caption:) I never really rallied after the birth of my first child.

  James Thurber

  Children, Parenting, Cartoon

  4 Copy quote

• A drawing is always dragged down to the level of its caption.

  James Thurber

  Drawing, Levels, Caption

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

  7 Copy quote

• When man gives up on reforming and inspiring society he also gives up his freedom.

  James Thurber

  Giving Up, Freedom, Men

  6 Copy quote

• Columbus is a town in which almost anything is likely to happen, and in which almost everything has.

  James Thurber

  Towns, Columbus, Happens

  James Thurber (1996). “James Thurber: Writings & Drawings (including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty)”, p.186, Library of America

  5 Copy quote

• A husband should not insult his wife publicly, at parties. He should insult her in the privacy of the home.

  James Thurber

  Husband, Women, Party

  James Thurber (2002). “Thurber Country: A Collection of Pieces about Males and Females, Mainly of Our Own Species”

  4 Copy quote

• Youcanfooltoomanyofthepeopletoomuchofthetime. See Lincoln 510:35.

  James Thurber

  Time

  4 Copy quote

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

  James Thurber

  Wise, Wisdom, Make Sense

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

  8 Copy quote

• The animals that depend on instinct have an inherent knowledge of the laws of economics and of how to apply them; Man, with his powers of reason, has reduced economics to the level of a farce which is at once funnier and more tragic than Tobacco Road.

  James Thurber

  Animal, Men, Law

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

  9 Copy quote

• Surely no other American institution is so bound around and tightened up by rules, strictures, adages, and superstitions as the Broadway theatre.

  James Thurber

  Broadway Theatre, Superstitions, Theater

  5 Copy quote

• I love the idea of there being two sexes, don't you?

  James Thurber

  Love, Sex, Ideas

  Cartoon caption, New Yorker, 22 Apr. 1939

  4 Copy quote

• All men kill the thing they hate, too, unless, of course, it kills them first.

  James Thurber

  Hate, Men, Firsts

  "Further Fables for Our Time". Book by James Thurber, 1956.

  12 Copy quote

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