Quote

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

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
Men
Compulsion
Dog
Involved
Strange
Called
Happy
Wish
Carefree
Might
Troubled

More quotes by James Thurber

Image
Writers of comedy have outlook, whereas writers of tragedy have, according to them, insight.
James Thurber
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I have the reputation for having read all of Henry James. Which would argue a misspent youth and middle age.
James Thurber
Image
Man has gone long enough, or even too long, without being man enough to face the simple truth that the trouble with man is man.
James Thurber
Image
The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa.
James Thurber
Image
Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation.
James Thurber
Image
I drew pictures rapidly and with few lines, because I had to write most of the pieces, too, and couldn't monkey long with the drawings. The divine urge was no higher than that.
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
I myself have known some profoundly thoughtful dogs.
James Thurber
Image
Humor and pathos, tears and laughter are, in the highest expression of human character and achievement, inseparable.
James Thurber
Image
Unless artists can remember what it was to be a little boy, they are only half complete as artist and as man.
James Thurber
Image
You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.
James Thurber
Image
I could have killed Gregory Fitzhurst at three hundred feet with my left hand.
James Thurber
Image
This is the posture of fortunes slave: one foot in the gravy, one foot in the grave.
James Thurber
Image
American girls often marry someone they can't stand to spite someone they can.
James Thurber
Image
The paths of glory at least lead to the Grave, but the paths of duty may not get you Anywhere.
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 sanity of the average banquet speaker lasts about two and a half months at the end of that time he begins to mutter to himself, and calls out in his sleep.
James Thurber
Image
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