Quotes by James Thurber

Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that can happen to a man.

Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.

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.

Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.

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

The most dangerous food is wedding cake.

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

Progress was all right. Only it went on too long.

The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody's guess.

The appreciative smile, the chuckle, the soundless mirth, so important to the success of comedy, cannot be understood unless one sits among the audience and feels the warmth created by the quality of laughter that the audience takes home with it.