James Thurber
James Thurber
James Grover Thurberwas an American cartoonist, author, journalist, playwright, and celebrated wit. Thurber was best known for his cartoons and short stories, published mainly in The New Yorker magazine and collected in his numerous books. One of the most popular humorists of his time, Thurber celebrated the comic frustrations and eccentricities of ordinary people. In collaboration with his college friend Elliott Nugent, he wrote the Broadway comedy The Male Animal, later adapted into a film, which starred Henry Fonda and...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionCartoonist
Date of Birth8 December 1894
CityColumbus, OH
CountryUnited States of America
The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms / hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal.
Remember laughter. You'll need it even in the blessed isles of Ever After.
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.
Laughter need not be cut out of anything, since it improves everything.
The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms -hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal.
We are a nation that has always gone in for the loud laugh, the wow, the yak, the belly laugh, and the dozen other labels for the roll- em-in-the-aisles gagerissimo. This is the kind of laugh that delights actors, directors, and producers, but dismays writers of comedy because it is the laugh that often dies in the lobby. 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.
Humor and pathos, tears and laughter are, in the highest expression of human character and achievement, inseparable.
These are rifle shots that certainly hurt the party but I don't think it's a wave that comes through and wipes out a lot of people.
And unless there is a major stumbling or bombshell, I think he will be confirmed.
Editing should be, especially in the case of old writers, a counseling rather than a collaborating task. The tendency of the writer-editor to collaborate is natural, but he should say to himself, ''How can I help this writer to say it better in his own style?'' and avoid ''How can I show him how I would write it, if it were my piece?''
Early to rise and early to bed Makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead
Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and dead
Even if Boss DeLay leaves, his legacy stays.
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.