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James Thurber

James Thurber Quotes

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Famous James Thurber Quotes

“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.”

IfsTryingEyeLostCasesWorstTheaterTheatreElephantsPlaywrightCrossingsNineteenAlpsSnowstorms
Book:Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself
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“He had as much fun in the water as any person I have known. You didn't have to throw a stick in the water to get him to go in. Of course, he would bring back a stick to you if you did throw one in. He would even have brought back a piano if you had thrown one in.”

IfsPersonsCoursesFunWaterKnownDogSticksPianoThrown
Book:James Thurber: Writings & Drawings (including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty)
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“It did not take Man long-probably not more than a hundred centuries-to discover that all the animals except the dog were impossible around the house. One has but to spend a few days with an aardvark or llama, command a water buffalo to sit up and beg or try to housebreak a moose, to perceive how wisely Man set about his process of elimination and selection.”

MenTryingLongHouseProcessWaterAnimalImpossibleCenturyDogHundredCommandPerceiveSelectionEliminationBuffaloMooseLlamasWater Buffalo
Book:James Thurber: Writings & Drawings (including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty)
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“My grandmother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house. It leaked, she contended, out of empty sockets if the wall switch had been left on. She would go around screwing in bulbs, and if they lighted up, she would fearfully turn off the wall switch and go back to her Pearson's or Everybody's, happy in the satisfaction that she had stopped not only a costly but dangerous leakage. nothing could ever clear this up for her.”

IfsYearsTurnsHouseLeftClearDangerousWallEmptySatisfactionHorribleLatterGrandmotherSuspicionElectricityMy GrandmotherTurn OffBulbsDrippingOff The WallLeakage
Author:James Thurber
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“Editing should be, especially in the case of old writers, a counselling 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?'”

IfsShouldWritingHelpingShowsNaturalCasesPiecesStyleTasksTendenciesEditorsEditingCollaboratingEditing And Writing
Book:Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself
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“I never had a dog that showed a human fear of death. Death, to a dog, is the final unavoidable compulsion, the least ineluctable scent on a fearsome trail, but they like to face it alone, going out into the woods, among the leaves, if there are any leaves when their time comes, enduring without sentimental human distraction the Last Loneliness, which they are wise enough to know cannot be shared by anyone.”

IfsKnowsHumansEnoughLastsFacesDeathWiseDogLonelinessEndureFinalsWoodsDistractionGoing OutScentSentimentalTrailsFear Of DeathCompulsion
Author:James Thurber
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“History is replete with proofs, from Cato the Elder to Kennedy the Younger, that if you scratch a statesman you find an actor, but it is becoming harder and harder, in our time, to tell government from show business.”

IfsShowsGovernmentActorsBecomingHarderProofOur TimeShow BusinessScratchesEldersStatesmenCato
Book:Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself
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“A peril of the night road is that flecks of dust and streaks of bug blood on the windshield look to me like old admirals in uniform, or crippled apple women, or the front edge of barges, and I whirl out of their way, thus going into ditches and fields and up on front lawns, endangering the life of authentic admirals and apple women who may be out on the roads for a breath of air before retiring.”

WayLooksMayNightAirBloodFrontsFieldsBreathsEdgesDrivingDustApplesRetiringUniformsBugsPerilLawnsStreaksCrippledAdmiralBarges
Book:The Thurber letters: the wit, wisdom, and surprising life of James Thurber
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“We all know that the theater and every play that comes to Broadway have within themselves, like the human being, the seed of self-destruction and the certainty of death. The thing is to see how long the theater, the play, and the human being can last in spite of themselves.”

KnowsHumansLongSelfPlayLastsHuman BeingsDestructionTheaterEntertainmentSeedsCertaintySpiteBroadwaySelf DestructionCertainty Of Death
Book:Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself
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“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.”

MenWorldReasonPurposeHumanityCommunityImaginationLossQualityTroubleGroupsBalanceRoseLegsOperationsStreamsRabbitsCompetenceChatterBeaversSagacity
Book:Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself
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“In an extensive reading of recent books by psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, and inspirationalists, I have discovered that they all suffer from one or more of these expression-complexes: italicizing, capitalizing, exclamation-pointing, multiple-interrogating, and itemizing. These are all forms of what the psychos themselves would call, if they faced their condition frankly, Rhetorical-Over-Compensation.”

IfsBookFormSufferingReadingPsychologyConditionsExpressionComplexesMultiplePointingCompensationPsychiatristPsychologistPsychoRhetoricalExclamationExtensive Reading
Author:James Thurber
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“Every man is occasionally visited by the suspicion that the planet on which he is riding is not really going anywhere; that the Force which controls its measured eccentricities hasn't got anything special in mind. If he broods on this somber theme long enough he gets the doleful idea that the laughing children on a merry-go-round or the thin, fine hands of a lady's watch are revolving more purposely than he is.”

IfsMenMindChildrenLongIdeasEnoughHandsPurposeForceWatchesLaughingSpecialPlanetsFineRoundsEvery ManThemeRidingSuspicionMerryEccentricityRevolvingSomberMerry Go RoundDoleful
Book:Writings and Drawings
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“I have figured for you the distance between the horns of a dilemma, night and day, and A and Z. I have computed how far is Up, how long it takes to get Away, and what becomes of Gone. I have discovered the length of the sea serpent, the price of priceless, and the square of the hippopotamus. I know where you are when you are at Sixes and Sevens, how much Is you have to have to make an Are, and how many birds you can catch with the salt in the ocean - 187,796,132, if it would interest you.”

IfsKnowsLongNightInterestGoneSeaOceanBirdDistanceGet AwayLengthWhere You AreSquaresSaltHornsDilemmaPricelessSerpentHippopotamus
Book:Many Moons
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“But those rare souls whose spirit gets magically into the hearts of men, leave behind them something more real and warmly personal than bodily presence, an ineffable and eternal thing. It is everlasting life touching us as something more than a vague, recondite concept. The sound of a great name dies like an echo; the splendor of fame fades into nothing; but the grace of a fine spirit pervades the places through which it has passed, like the haunting loveliness of mignonette.”

MenHeartRealSoulSpiritBehindsGraceFineHauntingLovelinessIneffableSomething Real
Author:James Thurber
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