“The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody's guess.”
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Author detail
The author of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and the creator of numerous New Yorker magazine cover cartoons, was born in Columbus, Ohio on December, 8, 1894. One of the foremost American humorists of the 20th century, his inimitable wit and pithy prose spanned a breadth of genres, including short stories, modern commentary, fiction, children's fantasy and letters. Thurber's father, Charles, was a civil clerk, and his mother, Mame, was an eccentric woman who would influence many of her son's stories. Thurber had two brothers, William and Robert. One day while playing "William Tell" with them as youngsters, Thurber lost the sight in one eye when an arrow pierced it. Ultimately, he would go blind in both eyes, but that never stopped him from writing or drawing. Thurber CarnivalFrom 1913-1917, Thurber attended the Ohio State University where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. It was at this time that the Thurbers rented the house at 77 Jefferson Avenue, which became Thurber House in 1984. Due to his eye injury, Thurber was not able to complete a compulsory ROTC course so OSU would not let him graduate, although they did give him an honorary degree later. Thurber launched his professional writing career as a reporter for the Columbus Dispatch in 1920. He began writing for the New Yorker in 1927 after friend E.B. White (Charlotte's Web) got him a job at the magazine. Thurber started as an editor for the magazine but quickly became a writer. His career as a cartoonist began in 1930, when White dug some of Thurber's drawings out of the trash and submitted them to be published in the New Yorker. Thurber wrote nearly forty books and won a Tony Award for his popular Broadway play, A Thurber Carnival, in which he often starred as himself. Thurber died of complications from pneumonia on November 2, 1961. --Thurberhouse.org
Quotes
Showing 21-40 of 52
“The past is an old armchair in the attic, the present an ominous ticking sound, and the future is anybody's guess.”
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“The sanity of the average banquet speaker lasts about two and a half months; at the end of that time he begins to mutter to himself, and calls out in his sleep.”
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“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.”
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“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...”
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“A drawing is always dragged down to the level of its caption.”
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“Man is flying too fast for a world that is round. Soon he will catch up with himself in a great rear end collision.”
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“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.”
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“Last night I dreamed of a small consolation enjoyed only by the blind: Nobody knows the trouble I've not seen!”
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“Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation.”
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“Discussion in America means dissent.”
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“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.”
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“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 la...”
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“The animals that depend on instinct have an inherent knowledge of the laws of economics and of how to apply them; Man, with his powers of reason, has reduced economics to the level of a farc...”
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“I am not a cat man, but a dog man, and all felines can tell this at a glance - a sharp, vindictive glance.”
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“There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.”
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“With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs.”
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“The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal.”
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“He who hesitates is sometimes saved.”
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“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, n...”
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“Laughter need not be cut out of anything, since it improves everything.”
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