Quote

It was Lisa, aged five, whose mother asked her to thank my wife for the peas we had sent them from our garden. 'I thought the peas were awful, I wish you and Mrs. Thurber were dead, and I hate trees,' said Lisa.

James Thurber

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Thought
Asked
Peas
Dead
Aged
Tree
Sent
Wife
Trees
Five
Thank
Wish
Awful
Hate
Garden
Thurber
Mother
Whose
Lisa

More quotes by James Thurber

Image
It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.
James Thurber
Image
The only rules comedy can tolerate are those of taste, and the only limitations those of libel.
James Thurber
Image
Humor and pathos, tears and laughter are, in the highest expression of human character and achievement, inseparable.
James Thurber
Image
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.
James Thurber
Image
The difference between our decadence and the Russians is that while theirs is brutal, ours is apathetic.
James Thurber
Image
I always begin at the left with the opening word of the sentence and read toward the right and I recommend this method.
James Thurber
Image
I used to wake up at 4 A.M. and start sneezing, sometimes for five hours. I tried to find out what sort of allergy I had but finally came to the conclusion that it must be an allergy to consciousness.
James Thurber
Image
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
Image
American girls often marry someone they can't stand to spite someone they can.
James Thurber
Image
We all have faults, and mine is being wicked.
James Thurber
Image
You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.
James Thurber
Image
Humourists lead... an existence of jumpiness and apprehension. They sit on the edge of the chair of Literature. In the house of Life they have the feeling that they have never taken off their overcoats.
James Thurber
Image
She wasn't much to look at but she was something to think about.
James Thurber
Image
The wit makes fun of other persons the satirist makes fun of the world the humorist makes fun of himself, but in so doing, he identifies himself with people - that is, people everywhere, not for the purpose of taking them apart, but simply revealing their true nature.
James Thurber
Image
The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa.
James Thurber
Image
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
Image
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
Image
The trouble with the lost generation is that it didn't get lost enough.
James Thurber
Image
There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.
James Thurber
Image
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