A drawing is always dragged down to the level of its caption.
James Thurber

A word to the wise is not sufficient if it doesn't make sense.
James Thurber

All men kill the thing they hate, too, unless, of course, it kills them first.
James Thurber

All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.
James Thurber

Boys are beyond the range of anybody's sure understanding, at least when they are between the ages of 18 months and 90 years.
James Thurber

But what is all this fear of and opposition to Oblivion? What is the matter with the soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep?
James Thurber

Comedy has to be done en clair. You can't blunt the edge of wit or the point of satire with obscurity. Try to imagine a famous witty saying that is not immediately clear.
James Thurber

Discussion in America means dissent.
James Thurber

Don't get it right, just get it written.
James Thurber

Early to rise and early to bed makes a man healthy, wealthy, and dead.
James Thurber


He who hesitates is sometimes saved.
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

Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.
James Thurber

I am not a cat man, but a dog man, and all felines can tell this at a glance - a sharp, vindictive glance.
James Thurber

I think that maybe if women and children were in charge we would get somewhere.
James Thurber

I used to wake up at 4 A.M. and start sneezing, sometimes for five hours. I tried to find out what sort of allergy I had but finally came to the conclusion that it must be an allergy to consciousness.
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

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

It is better to have loafed and lost, than never to have loafed at all.
James Thurber

It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.
James Thurber