James Thurber Quotes
1894–1961 United States
James Grover Thurber (8 December 1894 – 2 November 1961) was an American humorist and cartoonist.
- United States
- Cartoonists
- Editors
- Essayists
- Humorists
Also known as: Thurber, Thurber, James
Random James Thurber quote
60 quotes
Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.
He who hesitates is sometimes saved.
Discussion in America means dissent.
Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?
Love is blind, but desire just doesn't give a good goddam. [sic]
She came naturally by her confused and groundless fears, for her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house.
My Life and Hard Times (1933)
When all things are equal, translucence in writing is more effective than transparency, just as glow is more revealing than glare.
Memo to The New Yorker (1959)
With 60 staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and a definite hardening of the paragraphs.
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.
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).
Moral: Where most of us end up there is no knowing, but the hellbent get where they are going.
I always begin at the left with the opening word of the sentence and read toward the right and I recommend this method.
Memo to The New Yorker (1959)
In order to be eligible to play it was necessary for him to keep up in his studies, a very difficult matter, for while he was not dumber than an ox he was not any smarter.
From now on, I think it is safe to predict, neither the Democratic nor the Republican Party will ever nominate for President a candidate without good looks, stage presence, theatrical delivery, and a sense of timing.
It is true, I confess, that if a male character of my invention started across the stage to disrobe a virgin criminally (ah, euphemism to end euphemisms!), he would probably catch his foot in the piano stool and end up playing "Button Up Your Overcoat" on the black keys.
My drawings have been described as pre-intentionalist, meaning that they were finished before the ideas for them had occurred to me. I shall not argue the point.
We all know that the theater and every play that comes to Broadway have within themselves, like the human being, the seed of self-destruction and the certainty of death. The thing is to see how long the theater, the play, and the human being can last in spite of themselves.
My opposition 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.
"Who are you?" the minstrel asked. "I am the Golux," said the Golux, proudly, "the only Golux in the world, and not a mere Device."
The Thirteen Clocks (1951)
If a playwright tried to see eye to eye with everybody, he would get the worst case of strabismus since Hannibal lost an eye trying to count his nineteen elephants during a snowstorm while crossing the Alps.