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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.

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
Believe
Died
Years
Poet
Birth
Cases
Comedy
Many
Long
Something
Leads

More quotes by James Thurber

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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?'
James Thurber
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Dogs are obsessed with being happy.
James Thurber
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I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand.
James Thurber
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Human Dignity has gleamed only now and then and here and there, in lonely splendor, throughout the ages, a hope of the better men, never an achievement of the majority.
James Thurber
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I don't believe the writer should know too much where he's going. If he does, he runs into old man blueprint—old man propaganda.
James Thurber
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The paths of glory at least lead to the Grave, but the paths of duty may not get you Anywhere.
James Thurber
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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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When all things are equal, translucence in writing is more effective than transparency, just as glow is more revealing than glare.
James Thurber
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There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
James Thurber
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This is the posture of fortunes slave: one foot in the gravy, one foot in the grave.
James Thurber
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I think that maybe if women and children were in charge we would get somewhere.
James Thurber
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For one thing, she pronounced flowers 'flars' and I couldn't let it slide.
James Thurber
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You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
James Thurber
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Hundreds of hysterical persons must confuse these phenomena with messages from the beyond and take their glory to the bishop rather than the eye doctor.
James Thurber
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Writers of comedy have outlook, whereas writers of tragedy have, according to them, insight.
James Thurber
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The unicorn is a mythical beast.
James Thurber
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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
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Columbus is a town in which almost anything is likely to happen, and in which almost everything has.
James Thurber
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I have the reputation for having read all of Henry James. Which would argue a misspent youth and middle age.
James Thurber
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American girls often marry someone they can't stand to spite someone they can.
James Thurber