James Grover Thurber, 1894 - 1981
Photo by Fred Palumbo, World Telegram (1954)
Born: 8 December 1894, Columbus, Ohio
Died: 2 November 1961, New York City
Thurber's father was a mild-mannered clerk who became the model of his "Walter Mitty" character, his mother a "born comedienne" mother who loved practical jokes and once hobbled into a revival tent and was miraculously "cured". Thurber lost one eye when playing "William Tell" with his brother and his vision was never good, he was almost completely blind later in life. He attended Ohio State University and did well but wasn't given a degree because his sight was not good enough to take the mandatory ROTC class. (They awarded the degree in 1995.) He worked as a code clerk for the Department of State in WW I, first at Washington City and then at Paris. He came home to Columbus and took a reporting job at the Columbus Dispatch from 1921 to 1924, then moved to Greenwich Village and wrote for the New York Evening Post. After twenty rejections, he got his first short story in The New Yorker, joining the staff as an editor in 1927 with the help of another contributor, E. B. White. It was White who found some of his early drawings in the office trash and submitted them; Thurber was an editor, writer, and cartoonist at The New Yorker most of his life. He died of complications from pneumonia following a stroke.
Biography from Wikipedia and Authors' Calendar
Additional quotes from Wikiquote. Wikiquote entries are often "sourced" and may include items longer than those included here, particularly for poets, lyricists, and dramatists.
James Thurber quotes:
Quotes found : 67 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 5) 1 2 3 4 5 Next
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- A burden in the bush is worth two on your hands. permalink
James Thurber - "The Hunter and the Elephant", The New Yorker (18 February 1939) - A drawing is always dragged down to the level of its caption. permalink
James Thurber - The New Yorker (2 August 1930) - A word to the wise is not sufficient if it doesn't make any sense. permalink
James Thurber - "The Weaver and the Worm", The New Yorker (date unknown) - All men kill the thing they hate, too, unless, of course, it kills them first. permalink
James Thurber - "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (1939) - All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why. permalink
James Thurber - "The Shore and the Sea", Further Fables for Our Time (1956) - Boys are perhaps beyond the range of anybody's sure understanding, at least when they are between the ages of eighteen months and ninety years. permalink
James Thurber - "The Darlings at the Top of the Stairs", Lanterns & Lances (1961) - But those rare souls whose spirit gets magically into the hearts of men, leave behind them something more real and warmly personal than bodily presence, an ineffable and eternal thing. It is everlasting life touching us as something more than a vague, rec permalink
James Thurber - Discussion in America means dissent. permalink
James Thurber - "The Duchess and the Bugs", Lanterns & Lances (1961) - Don't get it right, just get it written. permalink
James Thurber - "The Sheep in Wolf's Clothing", The New Yorker (29 April 1939) - Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy, wealthy and dead. permalink
James Thurber - "The Shrike and the Chipmunks", The New Yorker (18 February 1939) - 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?" permalink
James Thurber - Memo to The New Yorker (1959) - He knows all about art, but he doesn't know what he likes. permalink
James Thurber - Cartoon caption, The New Yorker (4 November 1939) - He who hesitates is sometimes saved. permalink
James Thurber - "The Glass in the Field", The New Yorker (31 October 1939) - Her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house. permalink
James Thurber - My Life and Hard Times (1933) - Human Dignity has gleamed only now and then and here and there, in lonely splendor, throughout the ages, a hope of the better men, never an achievement of the majority. permalink
James Thurber
Quotes found : 67 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 5) 1 2 3 4 5 Next
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