James Thurber Quotes

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

Man has gone long enough, or even too long, without being man enough to face the simple truth that the trouble with Man is Man.

Now I am not a cat man, but a dog man, and all felines can tell this at a glance — a sharp, vindictive glance.

A pinch of probability is worth a pound of perhaps.

Boys are perhaps beyond the range of anybody's sure understanding, at least when they are between the ages of eighteen months and ninety years.

There are two kinds of light — the glow that illumines, and the glare that obscures.

Precision of communication is important, more important than ever, in our era of hair trigger balances, when a false or misunderstood word may create as much disaster as a sudden thoughtless act.

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.

"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."

"To hell with the handkerchief," said Walter Mitty scornfully. He took one last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then, with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last.

The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa.

Moral: Where most of us end up there is no knowing, but the hellbent get where they are going.

All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.

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

Love is blind, but desire just doesn't give a good goddam. [sic]