Comedy has to be done en clair. You cant blunt the edge of wit or the point of satire with obscurity. Try to imagine a famous witty saying that is not immediately clear. – James Thurber
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. – James Thurber
Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone? – James Thurber
Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more. – James Thurber
Theres the famous thing that the A&R man from the record company is supposed to do: Hes supposed to come into the studio and listen to the songs youve been recording and then say, Guys, I dont hear any singles. And then everybody falls into a terrible depression because you have to write one. – Jarvis Cocker
Growing old is not a gradual decline, but a series of drops, full of sorrow, from one ledge to another below it. But when we pick ourselves up we find our bones are, after all, not broken; while level enough and not unpleasing is the new terrace which lies unexplored before us. – Logan Pearsall Smith, “Age and Death,” Afterthoughts, 1931