James Thurber Quotes

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

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

There is no exception to the rule that every rule has an exception.

There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.

All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.

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

You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.

Beautiful things don't ask for attention.

I do not have a psychiatrist and I do not want one, for the simple reason that if he listened to me long enough, he might become disturbed.

The most dangerous food is wedding cake.

History is replete with proofs, from Cato the Elder to Kennedy the Younger, that if you scratch a statesman you find an actor, but it is becoming harder and harder, in our time, to tell government from show business.

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.

A false or misunderstood word may create as much disaster as a sudden thoughtless act.

She wasn't much to look at but she was something to think about.

I never had a dog that showed a human fear of death. Death, to a dog, is the final unavoidable compulsion, the least ineluctable scent on a fearsome trail, but they like to face it alone, going out into the woods, among the leaves, if there are any leaves when their time comes, enduring without sentimental human distraction the Last Loneliness, which they are wise enough to know cannot be shared by anyone.

Sixty minutes of thinking of any kind is bound to lead to confusion and unhappiness.

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

The things we laugh at are awful while they are going on, but get funny when we look back. And other people laugh because they've been through it too. The closest thing to humor is tragedy.

A pinch of probability is worth a pound of perhaps.

I have figured for you the distance between the horns of a dilemma, night and day, and A and Z. I have computed how far is Up, how long it takes to get Away, and what becomes of Gone. I have discovered the length of the sea serpent, the price of priceless, and the square of the hippopotamus. I know where you are when you are at Sixes and Sevens, how much Is you have to have to make an Are, and how many birds you can catch with the salt in the ocean - 187,796,132, if it would interest you.

Americans want to go to heaven without dying.

I myself have known some profoundly thoughtful dogs.

Women deserve to have more than 12 years between 28 and 40.

Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.

The dog has seldom been successful in pulling man up to its level of sagacity, but man has frequently dragged the dog down to his.