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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

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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
Strange
Called
Happy
Wish
Carefree
Might
Troubled
Men
Compulsion
Dog
Involved

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The trouble with the lost generation is that it didn't get lost enough.
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You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.
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Men are more interesting than women, but women ae more fascinating.
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The paths of glory at least lead to the Grave, but the paths of duty may not get you Anywhere.
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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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Let the meek inherit the earth -- they have it coming to them.
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Speed is scarcely the noblest virtue of graphic composition, but it has its curious rewards. There is a sense of getting somewhere fast, which satisfies a native American urge.
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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.
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But what is all this fear of and opposition to Oblivion? What is the matter with the soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep?
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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.
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For one thing, she pronounced flowers 'flars' and I couldn't let it slide.
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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.
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Progress was all right. Only it went on too long.
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You are all a lost generation, Gertrude Stein said to Hemingway. We weren't lost. We knew where we were, all right, but we wouldn't go home. Ours was the generation that stayed up all night.
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He knows all about art, but he doesn't know what he likes.
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We all have faults, and mine is being wicked.
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