James Thurber Quotes About Comedy

Quotes about: Comedy

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

  James Thurber

  Funny, Witty, Maturity

• With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs.

  James Thurber

  Birthday, Sarcastic, Writing

  1955 In the New York Post, 30 Jun.

• One martini is all right. Two are too many, and three are not enough.

  James Thurber

  Drinking, Beer, Two

• 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

  Truth, Simple, Men

  James Thurber (1961). “Lanterns & Lances”, New York : Harper

• There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.

  James Thurber

  Funny, Witty, Numbers

  New Yorker 4 Feb. 1939 "The Fairly Intelligent Fly"

• 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

  Dog, Cat, Men

  James Thurber (1961). “Lanterns & Lances”, New York : Harper

• Don't get it right, just get it written.

  James Thurber

  Inspirational Life, Writing, Comedy

  James Thurber (1996). “James Thurber: Writings & Drawings (including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty)”, p.562, Library of America

• The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody's guess.

  James Thurber

  Past, Sound, Comedy

• I used to wake up at 4 A.M. and start sneezing, sometimes for five hours. I tried to find out what sort of allergy I had but finally came to the conclusion that it must be an allergy to consciousness.

  James Thurber

  Sneezing, Allergies, Wake Up

• Sophistication might be described as the ability to cope gracefully with a situation involving the presence of a formidable menace to one's poise and prestige (such as the butler, or the man under the bed - but never the husband).

  James Thurber

  Husband, Men, Bed

  James Thurber (1990). “Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself”

• 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

  Nature, Fun, People

  Interview with Edward R. Murrow on "Small World", CBS-TV, March 25, 1959.

• All men kill the thing they hate, too, unless, of course, it kills them first.

  James Thurber

  Hate, Men, Firsts

  "Further Fables for Our Time". Book by James Thurber, 1956.

• The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself.

  James Thurber

  Fun, World, Comedy

  Interview with Edward R. Murrow on "Small World", CBS-TV, March 25, 1959.

• The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms -hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal.

  James Thurber

  Laughter, Men, Heartless

  1958 In the New York Times Magazine, 7 Dec.

• We are a nation that has always gone in for the loud laugh, the wow, the yak, the belly laugh, and the dozen other labels for the roll- em-in-the-aisles gagerissimo. This is the kind of laugh that delights actors, directors, and producers, but dismays writers of comedy because it is the laugh that often dies in the lobby. The appreciative smile, the chuckle, the soundless mirth, so important to the success of comedy, cannot be understood unless one sits among the audience and feels the warmth created by the quality of laughter that the audience takes home with it.

  James Thurber

  Laughter, War, Home

  James Thurber (1990). “Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself”

• Comedy has ceased to be a challenge to the mental processes. It has become a therapy of relaxation, a kind of tranquilizing drug.

  James Thurber

  Humor, Drug, Challenges

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

  James Thurber

  Funny, Hilarious, Witty

  Cartoon caption, New Yorker, 5 June 1937

• We all have faults, and mine is being wicked.

  James Thurber

  Wicked, Faults, Comedy

• The difference between our decadence and the Russians is that while theirs is brutal, ours is apathetic.

  James Thurber

  Differences, Apathy, Comedy

  The Observer, February 05, 1961.

• There is something about a poet which leads us to believe that he died, in many cases, as long as 20 years before his birth.

  James Thurber

  Believe, Years, Long

  Quoted in Helen Thurber and Edward Weeks (eds) Selected Letters of James Thurber (1981).

• 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

  Thinking, Years, Numbers

  Quoted in an interview with Glenna Syse in Time Magazine, August 15, 1960.

• 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

  Witty, Stupid, Trying

  Letter to Malcolm Cowley on March 11, 1954. "Collecting Himself". Book by James Thurber, 1989.

• Discussion in America means dissent.

  James Thurber

  Mean, America, Comedy

  James Thurber (1961). “Lanterns & lances”

• The appreciative smile, the chuckle, the soundless mirth, so important to the success of comedy, cannot be understood unless one sits among the audience and feels the warmth created by the quality of laughter that the audience takes home with it.

  James Thurber

  Happiness, Success, Laughter

  James Thurber (1990). “Collecting Himself: James Thurber on Writing and Writers, Humor and Himself”

• The only rules comedy can tolerate are those of taste, and the only limitations those of libel.

  James Thurber

  Taste, Comedy, Dignity

  1961 Lanterns and Lances,'The Duchess and the Bugs'.

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