James Thurber

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

"Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead. "

"He knows all about art, but he doesn't know what he likes. "

"Her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house. "

"I do not have a psychiatrist and I do not want one, for the simple reason that if he listened to me long enough, he might become disturbed. "

"I hate women because they always know where things are. "

"I loathe the expression What makes him tick. It is the American mind, looking for simple and singular solution, that uses the foolish expression. A person not only ticks, he also chimes and strikes the hour, falls and breaks and has to be put together again, and sometimes stops like an electric clock in a thunderstorm. "

"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. "

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

"It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers. "

"Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation. "

"The only rules comedy can tolerate are those of taste, and the only limitations those of libel. "

"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. "

"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 illumines, and the glare that obscures. "

"There is no safety in numbers, or in anything else. "

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

"You can fool too many of the people too much of the time. "

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