James Thurber Quotes

I am the Golux, the only Golux in the world and not a mere device

Her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house.

One afternoon a big wolf waited in a dark forest for a little girl to come along, carrying a basket of food to her grandmother. Finally a little girl did come a long and she was carrying a basket of food. “Are you carrying that basket to your grandmother? asked the wolf. The little girl said yes, she was. So the wolf asked her where her grandmother lived and the little girl told him and he disappeared into the wood.
When the little girl opened the door of her grandmother’s house she saw that there was somebody in bed with a nightcap and nightgown on. She had approached no nearer than twenty-five feet from the bed when she saw that it was not her grandmother but the wolf, for even in a nightcap a wolf does not look any more like your grandmother than the Metro-Goldwyn lion looks like Calvin Coolidge. So the little girl took an automatic out of her basket and shot the wolf dead.
Moral: It is not so easy to fool little girls nowadays as it used to be.

Hundreds of hysterical persons must confuse these phenomena with messages from the beyond and take their glory to the bishop rather than the eye doctor.

The noblest study of mankind is Man, says Man.

Hens embarrass me; owls disturb me; if I am with an eagle I always pretend that I am not with an eagle; and so on down to swallows at twilight who scare the hell out of me. But pigeons have absolutely no effect on me.

At forty my faculties may have closed up like flowers at evening, leaving me unable to write my memoirs with a fitting and discreet inaccuracy, or, having written them, unable to carry them to the publisher.

There was an old coddle so molly,
He talked in a glot that was poly,
His gaws were so gew
That his laps became dew,
And he ate only pops that were lolly.

"They've got him!" squealed the Duke. "Eleven men to one!"

"You may have heard of Galahad," said Hark, "whose strength was as the strength of ten."

"That leaves one man to get him," cried the Duke.

I don't remember any blue poodles.

She has a memory of trees and fields and nothing more.

Geep,' whuppled the parrot.

I can do a score of things that can’t be done.

I can find a thing I can’t see, and I see a thing I can’t find.

The first is time, and the second is a spot before my eyes.

I can feel a thing I cannot touch, and I touch a thing I cannot feel.

The first is sad and sorry, and the second is your heart.

What would you do without me? Say “nothing”.

There was a mist of moss to ride through and a storm of glass.

It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers.