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The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody's guess.
James Thurber
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James Thurber
Age: 66 †
Born: 1894
Born: December 18
Died: 1961
Died: November 2
Autobiographer
Cartoonist
Drawer
Humorist
Journalist
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Columbus
Ohio
James Grover Thurber
Comedy
Armchairs
Future
Attic
Sound
Attics
Past
Ticking
Ominous
Guess
Anybody
Present
Armchair
More quotes by James Thurber
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
Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation.
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I love the idea of there being two sexes, don't you?
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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.
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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
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
Youcanfooltoomanyofthepeopletoomuchofthetime. See Lincoln 510:35.
James Thurber
Man is flying too fast for a world that is round. Soon he will catch up with himself in a great rear end collision.
James Thurber
Man is troubled by what might be called the Dog Wish, a strange and involved compulsion to be as happy and carefree as a dog
James Thurber
This is the posture of fortunes slave: one foot in the gravy, one foot in the grave.
James Thurber
Reason is 6/7 of treason.
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It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.
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She wasn't much to look at but she was something to think about.
James Thurber
He who hesitates is sometimes saved.
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Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.
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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?'
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There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
James Thurber
Humor and pathos, tears and laughter are, in the highest expression of human character and achievement, inseparable.
James Thurber
The only rules comedy can tolerate are those of taste, and the only limitations those of libel.
James Thurber
Some American writers who have known each other for years have never met in the daytime or when both were sober.
James Thurber