Quotes from James Thurber

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.

It is all but impossible to sit quietly by when someone is throwing salad plates.

A drawing is always dragged down to the level of its caption. A word to the wise is not sufficient if it doesn't make sense.

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

Salvador [Dali] was brought up in Spain, a country colored by the legends of Hannibal, El Greco, and Cervantes. I was brought up in Ohio, a region steeped in the tradition of Coxey's Army, the Anti-Saloon League, and William Howard Taft.

In other countries, art and literature are left to a lot of shabby bums living in attics and feeding on booze and spaghetti.

You have made the moon, The Jester said. That is the moon.

Progress was all right. Only it went on too long.

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

The noblest study of mankind is Man, says Man.

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.

Books can be burned," croaked Black. "They have a way of rising from the ashes," said Andreus.

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.

I admire the person who can write it right off. Mencken once said that a person who thinks clearly can write well. But I don't think clearly--too many thoughts bump into one another. Trains of thought run on a track of the Central Nervous System--the New York Central Nervous System, to make it worse.

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.

I don't remember any blue poodles.

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.

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

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

Geep,' whuppled the parrot.

I don't understand," said the scientist, "why you lemmings all rush down to the sea and drown yourselves." "How curious," said the lemming. "The one thing I don't understand is why you human beings don't.

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".

The cold Duke was afraid of Now, for Now has warmth and urgency, and Then is dead and buried.