James Thurber Quotes (137 Quotes)

It had only one fault. It was kind of lousy.

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

But what is all this fear of and opposition to Oblivion? What is the matter with the soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep?

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

The question of whether the vice president was involved, we'll probably never know. But it was pretty close to him,

Don't let that chip on your shoulder be your only reason for walking erect

Art -- the one achievement of Man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised.

Unless artists can remember what it was to be a little boy, they are only half complete as artist and as man.

Even if Boss DeLay leaves, his legacy stays.

Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation.

He is perceived to be a liability at this point, and it's not just what comes from this particular court case.

This is the most important turning point for his administration in terms of turning down and losing support.

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.

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.

He who hesitates is sometimes saved.

Let us not look back to the past with anger, nor towards the future with fear, but look around with awareness.

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.

Members of Congress are very worried about the reaction in their district and their states about having an Arab country run several of our nation's ports.

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

He knows all about art, but he doesn't know what he likes.

Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by ignorance.

This is an old story that keeps repeating The people who are way out there and pushing the limits of power, they eventually are pushed out themselves. Jim Wright and Newt Gingrich did that, and they went. Now Tom DeLay. It was just a matter of time.

I thought once he was out, people would move on. But he is still there, concentrating power within the leadership and himself.

The symbolism of closing down the Congress and the Democrats and Republicans going outside the norms makes matter even worse, ... lack of comity.

There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.

They don't care about (Bush's) legacy. They care about getting re-elected.

Writers of comedy have outlook, whereas writers of tragedy have, according to them, insight.

One has but to observe a community of beavers at work in a stream to understand the loss in his sagacity, balance, co-operation, competence, and purpose which Man has suffered since he rose up on his hind legs. He began to chatter and he developed Reason, Thought, and Imagination, qualities which would get the smartest group of rabbits or orioles in the world into inextricable trouble overnight.

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

I have always thought of a dog lover as a dog that was in love with another dog.

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.

He was quite confident. He's smart, articulate and polite.

Editing should be, especially in the case of old writers, a counseling 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''

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

If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.

We all have faults, and mine is being wicked.

These are rifle shots that certainly hurt the party but I don't think it's a wave that comes through and wipes out a lot of people.