There is no exception to the rule that every rule has an exception. James Thurber More Quotes by James Thurber More Quotes From James Thurber I'm sixty-five and I guess that puts me in with the geriatrics, but if there were fifteen months in every year, I'd only be forty-eight. James Thurber eight age years The Old Man ain’t afraid of hell James Thurber old-man hell men For one thing, she pronounced flowers 'flars' and I couldn't let it slide. James Thurber one-thing slides flower My grandmother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house. It leaked, she contended, out of empty sockets if the wall switch had been left on. She would go around screwing in bulbs, and if they lighted up, she would fearfully turn off the wall switch and go back to her Pearson's or Everybody's, happy in the satisfaction that she had stopped not only a costly but dangerous leakage. nothing could ever clear this up for her. James Thurber wall grandmother years It did not take Man long-probably not more than a hundred centuries-to discover that all the animals except the dog were impossible around the house. One has but to spend a few days with an aardvark or llama, command a water buffalo to sit up and beg or try to housebreak a moose, to perceive how wisely Man set about his process of elimination and selection. James Thurber dog animal men It takes that je ne sais quoi which we call sophistication for a woman to be magnificent in a drawing-room when her faculties have departed but she herself has not yet gone home. James Thurber drawing alcohol home Every time is a time for comedy in a world of tension that would languish without it. But I cannot confine myself to lightness in a period of human life that demands light. We all know that, as the old adage has it, "It is later than you think." But I also say occasionally: "It is lighter than you think." In this light let's not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but around in awareness. James Thurber light looks thinking Laughter need not be cut out of anything, since it improves everything. James Thurber laughter cutting happiness In an extensive reading of recent books by psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychiatrists, and inspirationalists, I have discovered that they all suffer from one or more of these expression-complexes: italicizing, capitalizing, exclamation-pointing, multiple-interrogating, and itemizing. These are all forms of what the psychos themselves would call, if they faced their condition frankly, Rhetorical-Over-Compensation. James Thurber reading expression book Muggs was always sorry, Mother said, when he bit someone, but we could never understand how she figured this out. He didn't act sorry. James Thurber dog mother sorry Some American writers who have known each other for years have never met in the daytime or when both were sober. James Thurber sober writing years The only rules comedy can tolerate are those of taste, and the only limitations those of libel. James Thurber dignity comedy taste In the pathways between office and home and home and the houses of settled people there are always, ready to snap at you, the little perils of routine living, but there is no escape in the unplanned tangent, the sudden turn. James Thurber office home people If a playwright tried to see eye to eye with everybody, he would get the worst case of strabismus since Hannibal lost an eye trying to count his nineteen elephants during a snowstorm while crossing the Alps. James Thurber elephants theatre eye If you are a police dog, where's your badge? James Thurber badges police dog This is the posture of fortunes slave: one foot in the gravy, one foot in the grave. James Thurber slave ambition feet The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself. James Thurber comedy fun world One has but to observe a community of beavers at work in a stream to understand the loss in his sagacity, balance, co-operation, competence, and purpose which Man has suffered since he rose up on his hind legs. He began to chatter and he developed Reason, Thought, and Imagination, qualities which would get the smartest group of rabbits or orioles in the world into inextricable trouble overnight. James Thurber imagination loss men The trouble with the lost generation is that it didn't get lost enough. James Thurber generations modern-life trouble It's a naive domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption. James Thurber wine food thinking
