James Thurber Quotes

We all have faults, mine is being wicked.

"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."

It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all.

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

Lately, I have been wondering if there is time left for daydreaming in this 21st-century world of constant communication.

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself.

Mutual suspicions of mental inadequacy are common during the first year of any marriage.

The brambles and the thorns grew thick and thicker in a ticking thicket of bickering crickets. Farther along and stronger, bonged the gongs of a throng of frogs, green and vivid on their lily pads. From the sky came the crying of flies, and the pilgrims leaped over a bleating sheep creeping knee-deep in a sleepy stream, in which swift and slippery snakes slid and slithered silkily, whispering sinful secrets.

I used to wake up at 4 A.M. and start sneezing, sometimes for five hours. I tried to find out what sort of allergy I had but finally came to the conclusion that it must be an allergy to consciousness.

Sixty minutes of thinking of any kind is bound to lead to confusion and unhappiness.

Quick, name some towns in New Jersey

With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs.

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

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...

To see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to, to draw closer, to see and be amazed.