335 Quotes by James Thurber

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.

Taking a single letter from the alphaber," he said, "should make life simpler.""I don't see why. Take the F from life and you have lie. It's adding a letter to simple that makes it simpler. Taking a letter from hoarder makes it harder.

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

Time is for dragonflies and angels. The former live too little and the latter live too long.

I am trying to use reason and intelligence," said the strange new mongoose."Reason is six-sevenths of treason," said one of his neighbors."Intelligence is what the enemy uses," said another.

I admire the person who can write it right off. Mencken once said that a person who thinks clearly can write well. But I don't think clearly--too many thoughts bump into one another. Trains of thought run on a track of the Central Nervous System--the New York Central Nervous System, to make it worse.

You have made the moon," The Jester said. "That is the moon.

In his grief over the loss of a dog, a little boy stands for the first time on tiptoe, peering into the rueful morrow of manhood. After this most inconsolable of sorrows there is nothing life can do to him that he will not be able somehow to bear.

Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.