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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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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
Read
Henry
Would
James
Argue
Arguing
Reputation
Youth
Middle
Age
Misspent

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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.
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There is no exception to the rule that every rule has an exception.
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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.
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Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else?
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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
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The difference between our decadence and the Russians is that while theirs is brutal, ours is apathetic.
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There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
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Beautiful things don't ask for attention.
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A word to the wise is not sufficient if it doesn't make sense.
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I always begin at the left with the opening word of the sentence and read toward the right and I recommend this method.
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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.
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Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?
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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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This is the posture of fortunes slave: one foot in the gravy, one foot in the grave.
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Love is what you've been through with somebody.
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The most dangerous food is wedding cake.
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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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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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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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