Quotes by James Thurber

James Thurber

James Thurber

American cartoonist

Lived from: 1894 - 1961

Category: Artists Country: FlagUnited States

Born: 8 december 1894 Died: 2 november 1961

  • My drawings have been described as pre-internationalist, meaning that they were finished before the ideas for them had occurred to me. I shall not argue the point.
  • The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms - hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal.
  • It's a naïve domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.
  • It's better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.
  • I'm 65 and I guess that puts me in with the geriatrics. But if there were fifteen months in every year, I'd only be 48. That's the trouble with us. We number everything. Take women, for example. I think they deserve to have more than twelve years between the ages of 28 and 40.
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Quotes 1 till 20 of 47.

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  • Art, the one achievement of Man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised.
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  • A drawing is always dragged down to the level of its caption.
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  • A word to the wise is not sufficient if it doesn't make sense.
    ― James Thurber
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  • All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.
    ― James Thurber
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  • But what is all this fear of and opposition to Oblivion? What is the matter with the soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep?
    ― James Thurber
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  • 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.
    ― James Thurber
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  • Discussion in America means dissent.
    ― James Thurber
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  • Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead.
    ― James Thurber
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  • From now on, I think it is safe to predict, neither the Democratic nor the Republican Party will ever nominate for President a candidate without good looks, stage presence, theatrical delivery, and a sense of timing.
    ― James Thurber
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  • From one casual of mine he picked this sentence. ''After dinner, the men moved into the living room.'' I explained to the professor that this was Rose' way of giving the men time to push back their chairs and stand up. There must, as we know, be a comma after every move, made by men, on this earth.
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  • He was always leaning forward, pushing something invisible ahead of him.
    ― James Thurber
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  • He who hesitates is sometimes saved.
    ― James Thurber
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  • Human Dignity has gleamed only now and then and here and there, in lonely splendor, throughout the ages, a hope of the better men, never an achievement of the majority.
    ― James Thurber
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  • 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.
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  • Humor is a serious thing. I like to think of it as one of our greatest earliest natural resources, which must be preserved at all cost.
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  • Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.
    ― James Thurber
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  • I always begin at the left with the opening word of the sentence and read toward the right and I recommend this method.
    ― James Thurber
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  • I love the idea of there being two sexes, don't you?
    ― James Thurber
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  • I'm 65 and I guess that puts me in with the geriatrics. But if there were fifteen months in every year, I'd only be 48. That's the trouble with us. We number everything. Take women, for example. I think they deserve to have more than twelve years between the ages of 28 and 40.
    ― James Thurber
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  • 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.
    ― James Thurber
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What are the most famous quotes from James Thurber?

The two most famous quotes from James Thurber are:

  • "Art, the one achievement of Man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised."
  • "A drawing is always dragged down to the level of its caption."

When did James Thurber live?

James Thurber was born in 1894 and died in the year 1961.