James Thurber Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

• When all things are equal, translucence in writing is more effective than transparency, just as glow is more revealing than glare.

  James Thurber

  Writing, Justice, Glare

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

• 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.

• 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

• Some American writers who have known each other for years have never met in the daytime or when both were sober.

  James Thurber

  Writing, Years, Sober

  Quoted in NeilT Jones (ed) A Book of Days for the Literary Year (1984).

• 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.

  James Thurber

  Flower, Writing, Leaving

  James Thurber (1996). “James Thurber: Writings & Drawings (including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty)”, p.149, Library of America

• I never quite know when I'm not writing. Sometimes my wife comes up to me at a party and says, "Dammit, Thurber, stop writing." She usually catches me in the middle of a paragraph.

  James Thurber

  Party, Writing, Wife

  James Thurber, Thomas Fensch (1989). “Conversations with James Thurber”, p.61, Univ. Press of Mississippi

• I write humor the way a surgeon operates, because it is a livelihood, because I have a great urge to do it, because many interesting challenges are set up, and because I have the hope it may do some good.

  James Thurber

  Writing, Interesting, Challenges

• 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?'

  James Thurber

  Writing, Editing, Editors

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

• The act of writing is either something the writer dreads or actually likes, and I actually like it. Even re-writing's fun. You're getting somewhere, whether it seems to move or not.

  James Thurber

  Fun, Moving, Writing

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

• I drew pictures rapidly and with few lines, because I had to write most of the pieces, too, and couldn't monkey long with the drawings. The divine urge was no higher than that.

  James Thurber

  Writing, Drawing, Long

  James Thurber, Harrison Kinney, Rosemary A. Thurber (2002). “The Thurber letters: the wit, wisdom, and surprising life of James Thurber”, Simon and Schuster

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