Precision of communication is important, more important than ever, in our era of hair-trigger balances, when a false, or misunderstood word may create as much disaster as a sudden thoughtless act.
Quotations by:
Thurber, James
“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.”
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
“Interview with a Lemming” (1941)
Men of all degrees should form this prudent habit:
Never serve a rabbit stew before you catch the rabbit.James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
“Ivory, Apes, and People,” Further Fables for Our Time (1956)
Now I am not a cat man, but a dog man, and all felines can tell this at a glance — a sharp, vindictive glance.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
“My Senegalese Birds and Siamese Cats,” Holiday Magazine
Reprinted in Lanterns & Lances (1961).
You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
“The Bear Who Let It Alone”, The New Yorker (29 April 1939)
Love is blind, but desire just doesn’t give a good goddam.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
“The Clothes Moth and the Luna Moth”, The New Yorker (19 May 1956)
Discussion in America means dissent.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
“The Duchess and the Bugs” (1953)
The only rules comedy can tolerate are those of taste, and the only limitations those of libel.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
“The Duchess and the Bugs”, Lanterns & Lances (1961)
A "response" to an award Thurber received from the Ohioana Library Association in 1953.
There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
“The Fairly Intelligent Fly,” The New Yorker (4 Feb 1939)
You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
“The Owl Who Was God,” New Yorker (29 Apr. 1939)
“To hell with the handkerchief,” said Walter Mitty scornfully. He took one last drag on his cigarette and snapped it away. Then, with that faint, fleeting smile playing about his lips, he faced the firing squad; erect and motionless, proud and disdainful, Walter Mitty the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” (1942)
All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
“The Shore and the Sea,”, Moral, Further Fables for Our Time (1956)
Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
“The Shrike and the Chipmunks”, The New Yorker (1939-02-18)
Often misquoted as "Early to rise and early to bed makes a man healthy, wealthy, and dead."
See Franklin.
Man has gone long enough, or even too long, without being man enough to face the simple truth that the trouble with Man is Man.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
“The Trouble with Man is Man,” The New Yorker (27 Aug 1960)
Full text.
Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a golden horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her. “There’s a unicorn in the garden,” he said. “Eating roses.” She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him. “The unicorn is a mythical beast,” she said, and turned her back on him. The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there; he was now browsing among the tulips.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
“The Unicorn in the Garden”, The New Yorker (31 Oct 1939)
Full text.
If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
“Why Not Die?” The New Yorker (21 Sep 1935)
Art — the one achievement of Man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
Forum and Century (Jun 1939)
Also quoted in Clifton Fadiman, I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Certain Eminent Men and Women of Our Time (1939).
There are two kinds of light — the glow that illumines, and the glare that obscures.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
Lanterns and Lances (1961)
Sometimes misquoted: "... the glow that illuminates ..."
The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1942)
It’s a Naive Domestic Burgandy, Without Any Breeding, but I think you’ll be Amused by its Presumption.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
Cartoon caption, Men, Women and Dogs (1943)
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.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
Essay (1958-12-07), “State of the Nation’s Humor: ‘On the Brink of Was,'” New York Times Magazine
(Source)
The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms — hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
Essay (1958-12-07), “State of the Nation’s Humor: ‘On the Brink of Was,'” New York Times Magazine
(Source)
America must learn that humor, whatever form it may take, can be one of our strongest allies, but it cannot flourish in a weather of fear and hysteria and intimidation.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
Essay (1958-12-07), “State of the Nation’s Humor: ‘On the Brink of Was,'” New York Times Magazine
(Source)
But what is all this fear of and opposition to Oblivion? What is the matter with the soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep?
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
In Clifton Fadiman, I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Twenty-Three Eminent Men and Women of Our Time (1940)
(Source)
Also published in Forum and Century (Jun 1939). Words spoken by Sylvester Blougram, the title character from Robert Browning's "Bishop Blougram's Apology" (1855).
By definition, humor is gentle. The savage, the cruel, the harsh would fall under the heading of wit and/or satire, as the lawyers say. Now, my definitions are these: 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.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
Interview (1959-03-24) by Edward R. Murrow, Small World, CBS-TV
(Source)
When Siobhan McKenna, one of the other guests, made a comment about "cruel humor."
The transcript was printed as "That Girl in Galway" in the next (?) day's New York Post.
The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody’s guess.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
Letter (1961-07-05) to Marianna Brown
(Source)
Editing should be, especially in the case of old writers, a counseling 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?”
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
Memo to The New Yorker (1959)
Reprinted in New York Times Book Review (4 Dec 1988)
Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
Quoted in New York Post (29 Feb 1960)
Playing on a Wordsworth definition of poetry as "emotion recollected in tranquility."
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 (1894-1961) American humorist, cartoonist, writer
Unpublished Note (20 Mar 1961), Collecting Himself (1989)
After the Kennedy-Nixon TV debates.