“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.”
0 likes
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 41-52 of 52
“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.”
0 likes
“The only rules comedy can tolerate are those of taste, and the only limitations those of libel.”
0 likes
“One martini is all right. Two are too many, and three are not enough.”
0 likes
“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.”
0 likes
“There is no exception to the rule that every rule has an exception.”
0 likes
“But what is all this fear of and opposition to Oblivion? What is the matter with the soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep?”
0 likes
“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.”
0 likes
“Sixty minutes of thinking of any kind is bound to lead to confusion and unhappiness.”
0 likes
“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.”
0 likes
“Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.”
0 likes
“I'm 65 and I guess that puts me in with the geriatrics. But if there were fifteen months in every year, I'd only be 48. That's the trouble with us. We number everything. Take women, for exam...”
0 likes
“I think that maybe if women and children were in charge we would get somewhere.”
0 likes