James Thurber Quotes

A collection of quotes by James Thurber.

James Thurber (1894-1961) was an American writer, cartoonist, and humorist, best known for his unique and satirical contributions to American literature and humor. Born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, he developed a passion for drawing and writing from a young age. Thurber attended Ohio State University, where he began his career as a journalist and cartoonist.

Thurber's works often featured absurd scenarios and ingenious wordplay, presenting a humorous yet insightful commentary on the human condition. A great portion of his career was spent as a staff writer and cartoonist for The New Yorker magazine, where his drawings and witty essays became immensely popular. His writing covered a range of themes, from the idiosyncrasies of everyday life to critiques of social conventions, often highlighting the complexities and contradictions of human behavior.

Some of Thurber's most notable works include his collections of short stories and essays, such as "My Life and Hard Times" and "The Thurber Carnival." He also wrote a number of popular children's books, including "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" and "The Thirteen Clocks."

Throughout his career, Thurber received numerous awards for his contributions to literature and humor, including the prestigious Tony Award for his Broadway adaptation of "The Thurber Carnival" in 1961. James Thurber's legacy endures as a master of wit, a keen observer of society, and one of America's most beloved humorists.

Philosophy offers the rather cold consolation that perhaps w

Philosophy offers the rather cold consolation that perhaps we and our planet do not actually exist; religion presents the contradictory and scarcely more comforting thought that we exist but that we cannot hope to get anywhere until we cease to exist. Alcohol, in attempting to resolve the contradiction, produces vivid patterns of Truth which vanish like snow in the morning sun and cannot be recalled; the revelations of poetry are as wonderful as a comet in the skies -- and as mysterious. Love, which was once believed to contain the Answer, we now know to be nothing more than an inherited behavior pattern.

Universe

Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the p

Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?

Conflict

Why do you have to a nonconformist like everybody else?

Why do you have to a nonconformist like everybody else?

Conformity & Nonconformity

The only rules comedy can tolerate are those of taste, and t

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

Comedy

Comedy has to be done en clair. You can't blunt the edge of

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.

Comedy

Some American writers who have known each other for years ha

Some American writers who have known each other for years have never met in the daytime or when both were sober.

Authors & Writing

When all things are equal, translucence in writing is more e

When all things are equal, translucence in writing is more effective than transparency, just as glow is more revealing than glare.

Authors & Writing

Humor does not include sarcasm, invalid irony, sardonicism,

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.

Humor

Next to reasoning, the greatest handicap to the optimum deve

Next to reasoning, the greatest handicap to the optimum development of Man lies in the fact that this planet is just barely habitable. Its minimum temperatures are too low, and its maximum temperatures too high. Its day is not long enough, and its night is too long. The disposition of its water and earth is distinctly unfortunate (the existence of the Mediterranean Sea in the place where we find it is perhaps the unhappiest accident in the whole firmament). These factors encourage depression, fear, war, and lack of vitality. They describe a planet, which is by no means perfectly devised for the nurturing or for the perpetuation of a higher intelligence.

World

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

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

Wisdom

Man is flying too fast for a world that is round. Soon he wi

Man is flying too fast for a world that is round. Soon he will catch up with himself in a great rear end collision.

Travel

We all know that the theater and every play that comes to Br

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.

Entertainment

If a playwright tried to see eye to eye with everybody, he w

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.

Theater

It's a na?ve domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but I t

It's a na?ve domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.

Wine

While he was not as dumb as an ox, he was not any smarter ei

While he was not as dumb as an ox, he was not any smarter either.

Character

But those rare souls whose spirit gets magically into the he

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.

Spirituality

I always begin at the left with the opening word of the sent

I always begin at the left with the opening word of the sentence and read toward the right and I recommend this method.

Reading

He was always leaning forward, pushing something invisible a

He was always leaning forward, pushing something invisible ahead of him.

Attitude

Every man is occasionally visited by the suspicion that the

Every man is occasionally visited by the suspicion that the planet on which he is riding is not really going anywhere; that the Force which controls its measured eccentricities hasn't got anything special in mind. If he broods on this somber theme long enough he gets the doleful idea that the laughing children on a merry-go-round or the thin, fine hands of a lady's watch are revolving more purposely than he is.

Purpose

Sophistication might be described as the ability to cope gra

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).

Class