The only rules comedy can tolerate are those of taste, and the only limitations those of libel. — James Thurber Copy Share Image
Laughter need not be cut out of anything, since it improves everything. — James Thurber Copy Share Image
The things we laugh at are awful while they are going on, but get funny when we look back. And other people… — James Thurber Copy Share Image
Comedy has to be done en clair. You can't blunt the edge of wit or the point of satire with obscurity. Try… — James Thurber Copy Share Image
I was seized by the stern hand of Compulsion, that dark, unreasonable Urge that impels women to clean house in the middle… — James Thurber Copy Share Image
The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal. — James Thurber Copy Share Image
The nation that complacently and fearfully allows its artists and writers to become suspected rather than respected is no longer regarded as… — James Thurber Copy Share Image
Humor and pathos, tears and laughter are, in the highest expression of human character and achievement, inseparable. — James Thurber Copy Share Image
Humor is a serious thing. I like to think of it as one of our greatest earliest natural resources, which must be… — James Thurber Copy Share Image
“I admire the person who can write it right off. Mencken once said that a person who thinks clearly can write well.… — James Thurber Copy Share Image
I write humor the way a surgeon operates, because it is a livelihood, because I have a great urge to do it,… — James Thurber Copy Share Image
Humor does not include sarcasm, invalid irony, sardonicism, innuendo, or any other form of cruelty. When these things are raised to a… — James Thurber Copy Share Image
Every time is a time for comedy in a world of tension that would languish without it. But I cannot confine myself… — James Thurber Copy Share Image
Comedy has ceased to be a challenge to the mental processes. It has become a therapy of relaxation, a kind of tranquilizing… — James Thurber Copy Share Image
Writers of comedy have outlook, whereas writers of tragedy have, according to them, insight. — James Thurber Copy Share Image
“At forty my faculties may have closed up like flowers at evening, leaving me unable to write my memoirs with a fitting… — James Thurber Copy Share Image
“Hens embarrass me; owls disturb me; if I am with an eagle I always pretend that I am not with an eagle;… — James Thurber Copy Share Image
The appreciative smile, the chuckle, the soundless mirth, so important to the success of comedy, cannot be understood unless one sits among… — James Thurber Copy Share Image
We are a nation that has always gone in for the loud laugh, the wow, the yak, the belly laugh, and the… — James Thurber Copy Share Image
Salvador [Dali] was brought up in Spain, a country colored by the legends of Hannibal, El Greco, and Cervantes. I was brought up in… — James Thurber Copy Share Image
“Her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house.” — James Thurber Copy Share Image
“Against the may, the could be, and the should, folly 'tis to balance doubt or hope.” — James Thurber Copy Share Image
Love is the strange bewilderment that overtakes one person on account of another person. — James Thurber Copy Share Image
“ There was an old coddle so molly, He talked in a glot that was poly, His gaws were so gew That his laps… — James Thurber Copy Share Image
“you might as well fall on your face as lean over too far backwards” — james thurber Copy Share Image
All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why. — James Thurber Copy Share Image
“I don’t understand,” said the scientist, “why you lemmings all rush down to the sea and drown yourselves.” “How curious,” said the lemming. “The… — James Thurber Copy Share Image
![“Salvador [Dali] was brought up in Spain, a country colored by the legends of Hannibal, El Greco, and Cervantes. I was brought up in Ohio, a region steeped in the tradition of Coxey's Army, the Anti-Saloon League, and William Howard Taft.” quote by James Thurber](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/f6b/james-thurber-1534_army_salvador-dali-was-brought-up-in-spain-a_39625.jpg)
