The dog has seldom been successful in pulling man up to its level of sagacity, but man has frequently dragged the dog down to his.
James Thurber

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

The most dangerous food is wedding cake.
James Thurber

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

The only rules comedy can tolerate are those of taste, and the only limitations those of libel.
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

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

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

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

There is no exception to the rule that every rule has an exception.
James Thurber

There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
James Thurber

There is something about a poet which leads us to believe that he died, in many cases, as long as 20 years before his birth.
James Thurber

Unless artists can remember what it was to be a little boy, they are only half complete as artist and as man.
James Thurber

We all have faults, and mine is being wicked.
James Thurber

Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?
James Thurber

Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else?
James Thurber

With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs.
James Thurber

Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more.
James Thurber

You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
James Thurber

You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.
James Thurber