James Thurber - Man Quotes

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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 under the bed — but never the husband).

James Thurber
The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms — hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal.

James Thurber
Though statisticians in our time have never kept the score, Man wants a great deal here below and Woman even more.

James Thurber
Until a man can quit talking loudly to himself in order to shout down the memories of blunderings and gropings, he is in no shape for the painstaking examination of distress.

James Thurber
One has but to observe a community of beavers at work in a stream to understand the loss in his sagacity, balance, co-operation, competence, and purpose which Man has suffered since he rose up on his hind legs. He began to chatter and he developed Reason, Thought, and Imagination, qualities which would get the smartest group of rabbits or orioles in the world into inextricable trouble overnight.

James Thurber
Man is troubled by what might be called the Dog Wish, a strange and involved compulsion to be as happy and carefree as a dog

James Thurber
It did not take Man long-probably not more than a hundred centuries-to discover that all the animals except the dog were impossible around the house. One has but to spend a few days with an aardvark or llama, command a water buffalo to sit up and beg or try to housebreak a moose, to perceive how wisely Man set about his process of elimination and selection.

James Thurber
Every man is occasionally visited by the suspicion that the planet on which he is riding is not really going anywhere; that the Force which controls its measured eccentricities hasn't got anything special in mind. If he broods on this somber theme long enough he gets the doleful idea that the laughing children on a merry-go-round or the thin, fine hands of a lady's watch are revolving more purposely than he is.

James Thurber
Art—the one achievement of Man which has made the long trip up from all fours seem well advised.

James Thurber
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 farce which is at once funnier and more tragic than Tobacco Road.

James Thurber
Somebody once said that I am incapable of drawing a man, but that I draw abstract things like despair, disillusion, despondency, sorrow, lapse of memory, exile, and that these things are sometimes in a shape that might be called Man or Woman.

James Thurber
Man is flying too fast for a world that is round. Soon he will catch up with himself in a great rear end collision.

James Thurber
Having a manuscript under Ross's scrutiny was like putting your car in the hands of a skilled mechanic, not an automotive engineer with a bachelor of science degree, but a guy who knows what makes a motor go, and sputter, and wheeze, and sometimes comes to a dead stop; a man with an ear for the faintest body squeak as well as the loudest engine rattle.

James Thurber
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.

James Thurber
Now I am not a cat man, but a dog man, and all felines can tell this at a glance — a sharp, vindictive glance.

James Thurber
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.

James Thurber
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.

James Thurber