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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

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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
Shows
Harder
Statesman
Government
Actor
Scratch
Find
Becoming
Statesmen
Time
Actors
Kennedy
Show
Scratches
Replete
History
Elders
Cato
Business
Younger
Elder
Tell
Proof
Proofs

More quotes by James Thurber

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Last night I dreamed of a small consolation enjoyed only by the blind: Nobody knows the trouble I've not seen!
James Thurber
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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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In the pathways between office and home and home and the houses of settled people there are always, ready to snap at you, the little perils of routine living, but there is no escape in the unplanned tangent, the sudden turn.
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There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.
James Thurber
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The Old Man ain’t afraid of hell
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Don't get it right, just get it written.
James Thurber
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God bless... God damn.
James Thurber
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Reason is 6/7 of treason.
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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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The pounding of the cylinders increased: ta-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa-pocketa.
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Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more.
James Thurber
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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.
James Thurber
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Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.
James Thurber
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Unless artists can remember what it was to be a little boy, they are only half complete as artist and as man.
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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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Beautiful things don't ask for attention.
James Thurber
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If a playwright tried to see eye to eye with everybody, he would get the worst case of strabismus since Hannibal lost an eye trying to count his nineteen elephants during a snowstorm while crossing the Alps.
James Thurber
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Progress was all right. Only it went on too long.
James Thurber
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We all know that the theater and every play that comes to Broadway have within themselves, like the human being, the seed of self-destruction and the certainty of death. The thing is to see how long the theater, the play, and the human being can last in spite of themselves.
James Thurber
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No male can beat a female in the long run because they have it over us in sheer, damn longevity.
James Thurber