Quotes by James Thurber

All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.

The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the 
world; the humorist makes fun of himself.

There are two kinds of light--the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.

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

Well if this is the wrong number, why did you answer it?

When all things are equal, translucence in writing is more effective than transparency, just as glow is more revealing than glare.

It had only one fault. It was kind of lousy.

And the little girl had approached the bed no nearer than thirty feet when she pulled out a pistol and shot the wolf dead; for even in a cap and nightgown a wolf looks no more like your grandmother than Calvin Coolidge looks like the Metro-Goldwyn lion. Moral: Little girls are not so easy to fool nowadays as they used to be.

You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.

Americans want to go to heaven without dying.