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James Thurber Quotes about Laughter

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Laughter need not be cut out of anything, since it improves everything.

Laughter need not be cut out of anything, since it improves everything.

James Thurber
Happiness, Laughter, Cutting
Quoted in Helen Thurber and Edward Weeks (eds) Selected Letters of JamesT hurber (1981).

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”

Remember laughter. You'll need it even in the blessed isles of Ever After.

James Thurber
Laughter, Blessed, Needs
James Thurber (1996). “Writings and Drawings”, Library of America

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.

Humor and pathos, tears and laughter are, in the highest expression of human character and achievement, inseparable.

James Thurber
Laughter, Character, Expression
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”

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