Quotes by James Thurber

Womans place is in the wrong.

The nation that complacently and fearfully allows its artists and writers to become suspected rather than respected is no longer regarded as a nation possessed with humor or depth.

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.

Love is what youve been through with somebody.

Comedy has to be done en clair. You cant blunt the edge of wit or the point of satire with obscurity. Try to imagine a famous witty saying that is not immediately clear.

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself, but in so doing, he identifies himself with people - that is, people everywhere, not for the purpose of taking them apart, but simply revealing their true nature.

The most dangerous food is wedding cake.

Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more.

I hate women because they always know where things are.

I think that maybe if women and children were in charge we would get somewhere.

The dog has got more fun out of Man than Man has got out of the dog, for the clearly demonstrable reason that Man is the more laughable of the two animals.

Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.

But what is all this fear of and opposition to Oblivion? What is the matter with the soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep?

Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?

Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else?

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

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

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

“Time is for dragonflies and angels. The former live too little and the latter live too long.”