James Thurber Quotes

American - Author December 8, 1894 - November 2, 1961

There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.

James Thurber

https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/james_thurber

Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that can happen to a man.

James Thurber

The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal.

James Thurber

The animals that depend on instinct have an inherent knowledge of the laws of economics and of how to apply them; Man, with his powers of reason, has reduced economics to the level of a farce which is at once funnier and more tragic than Tobacco Road.

James Thurber

The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody's guess.

James Thurber

Humor is a serious thing. I like to think of it as one of our greatest earliest natural resources, which must be preserved at all cost.

James Thurber

I'm 65 and I guess that puts me in with the geriatrics. But if there were fifteen months in every year, I'd only be 48. That's the trouble with us. We number everything. Take women, for example. I think they deserve to have more than twelve years between the ages of 28 and 40.

James Thurber

The dog has got more fun out of Man than Man has got out of the dog, for the clearly demonstrable reason that Man is the more laughable of the two animals.

James Thurber

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