James Thurber
The most dangerous food is wedding cake.Collection: Wedding
The dog has got more fun out of Man than Man has got out of the dog, for the clearly demonstrable reason that Man is the more laughable of the two animals.Collection: Pet
Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more.Collection: Women
Progress was all right. Only it went on too long.Collection: Funny
Humor is a serious thing. I like to think of it as one of our greatest earliest natural resources, which must be preserved at all cost.Collection: Humor
I hate women because they always know where things are.Collection: Women
Old age is the most unexpected of all the things that can happen to a man.Collection: Age
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.Collection: Famous
Love is what you've been through with somebody.Collection: Love
The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody's guess.Collection: Future
I think that maybe if women and children were in charge we would get somewhere.Collection: Women
Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.Collection: Humor
Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?Collection: Funny
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.Collection: Humor
It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.Collection: Education
Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else?Collection: Funny
Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.Collection: Anger
All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Smile
My opposition to Interviews lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral give and take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language.
One martini is all right. Two are too many, and three are not enough.
It's a naive domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption.
There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.
You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.
Early to rise and early to bed makes a man healthy, wealthy, and dead.
There is no exception to the rule that every rule has an exception.
You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.
Sixty minutes of thinking of any kind is bound to lead to confusion and unhappiness.
A word to the wise is not sufficient if it doesn't make sense.
Sophistication might be described as the ability to cope gracefully with a situation involving the presence of a formidable menace to one's poise and prestige (such as the butler, or the man under the bed - but never the husband).
A drawing is always dragged down to the level of its caption.
He who hesitates is sometimes saved.
It is better to have loafed and lost, than never to have loafed at all.
Don't get it right, just get it written.
If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.
Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation.
The difference between our decadence and the Russians' is that while theirs is brutal, ours is apathetic.
The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal.
We all have faults, and mine is being wicked.
Boys are beyond the range of anybody's sure understanding, at least when they are between the ages of 18 months and 90 years.
Man has gone long enough, or even too long, without being man enough to face the simple truth that the trouble with man is man.
I am not a cat man, but a dog man, and all felines can tell this at a glance - a sharp, vindictive glance.
There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else.
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.
Laughter need not be cut out of anything, since it improves everything.
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.
Discussion in America means dissent.
Man is flying too fast for a world that is round. Soon he will catch up with himself in a great rear end collision.
I used to wake up at 4 A.M. and start sneezing, sometimes for five hours. I tried to find out what sort of allergy I had but finally came to the conclusion that it must be an allergy to consciousness.
Speed is scarcely the noblest virtue of graphic composition, but it has its curious rewards. There is a sense of getting somewhere fast, which satisfies a native American urge.