James Thurber thread

was he the one who said...

if called by a panther, don't anther?

oh sorry, that was Ogden Nash.

Oh! I used to read Thurber wherever I could find him...and look at his pictures, too!


Who can forget the cock-eyed spaniard.....or "I seem to have these midgets."

"Let us not look back to the past with anger, nor towards the future with fear, but look around with awareness."

"You can fool too many of the people too much of the time."

"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"

Marking, edgar, because I adore Thurber:

No quotes, right now, but remembering The Dog that Bit People; The Night the Ghost got In; Secret Life of Walter Mitty. My World and Welcome to it. University Days.

That was all from memory. It seems that he also did : Are you sitting in the catbird's seat; are you tearing up the peapatch?

Well, if I called the wrong number,
why did you answer the
phone? - James Thurber

When all things are equal, translucence in writing is more effective than transparency, just as glow is more revealing than glare.


Sixty minutes of thinking of any kind is bound to lead to confusion and unhappiness.

My drawings have been described as pre-intentionalist, meaning that they were finished before the ideas for them had occurred to me. I shall not argue the point.

It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all.

James Thurber
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

James Grover Thurber (December 8, 1894-November 2, 1961) was a U.S. humorist and cartoonist. Thurber was best known for his contributions (both cartoons and short stories) to The New Yorker magazine.

Thurber was born in Columbus, Ohio. He attended The Ohio State University, where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity. He joined the staff of The New Yorker in 1927 and continued to contribute to the magazine through the 1950s.

Thurber was married twice. His only child, Rosemary, was born during his first marriage to Althea Adams, from 1922 to 1935. His second marriage, to Helen Wismer in 1935, endured until his death.

Due to a childhood injury, Thurber lost one eye. He progressively suffered from very poor eyesight in his remaining eye. His sight grew weaker as he grew older. He also suffered from a toxic-thyroid condition for more than 2 years in the 1950's, and died of complications from the removal of a benign brain tumor.

Thurber worked hard in the 1920's, both in the U.S.A. and in France, to establish himself as a professional writer. However, unique among major American literary figures, he became equally well known for his simple, surrealistic drawings and cartoons. Both his skills were helped along by the support of, and collaboration with, fellow New Yorker staff member E. B. White. White insisted that Thurber's sketches could stand on their own as artistic expressions--and Thurber would go on to draw six covers and numerous classic illustrations for the New Yorker.

While able to sketch out his cartoons in the usual fashion in the 1920's and 1930's, his failing eyesight later required him to draw them on very large sheets of paper using a thick black crayon (also, on black paper using white chalk, from which they were photographed and the colors reversed for publication). Regardless of method, his cartoons became as notable as his writings; they possessed an eerie, wobbly feel that seems to mirror Thurber's idiosyncratic view on life. (Dorothy Parker, contemporary and friend of Thurber, referred to his cartoons as having the "semblance of unbaked cookies.")

Many of his short stories are humorous fictional memoirs from his life, but he also wrote darker material. "The Dog Who Bit People" and "The Night the Bed Fell" are among his best short stories; they can be found in My Life and Hard Times, the creative mix of autobiography and fiction which was his 'break-out' book. Also notable, and often anthologized, are "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty", "The Catbird Seat," "The Greatest Man in the World" and "If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomatox", which can be found in The Thurber Carnival.

Thurber teamed with college schoolmate (and actor/director) Elliot Nugent to write a major Broadway hit comic drama of the late 1930's, "The Male Animal" (made into a film in 1942, starring Henry Fonda, Olivia de Haviland, and Jack Carson.). Near the end of his life, Thurber finally was able to fulfill his long-standing desire to be on the professional stage by playing himself in a few performances of the anthology "A Thurber Carnival," made up of various acted-out stories and cartoon captions. Thurber won a special Tony Award for the adapted script of the "Carnival."

A network television show based on Thurber's writings and life entitled My World and Welcome to It was broadcast from 1969 to 1970, starring William Windom as the Thurber figure. Windom went on to perform Thurber's work in his one-man stage performances. The animation of his cartoons on this show led to the 1972 Jack Lemmon film "The War Between Men And Women," which concludes with a fine animated rendering of Thurber's classic anti-war work "The Last Flower."

Thurber died at age 66 in New York City. An annual award, The Thurber Prize, begun in 1966, honors outstanding examples of American humor.

Bookmarking-- I love Thurber.

One of my favorites:

The Dog That Bit People:

"The Dog That Bit People" is James Thurber's best tale. A quotation from PBS once described Thurber's literary style and its effectiveness on people, "Thurber's satirical treatment of marital discord and his unique understanding of the befuddled male in the age of the New Woman made his work the favorite of Everyman." Indeed, most of Thurber's essays in his book, "My Life and Hard Times" reflect this quote; however, this is what makes "The Dog That Bit People" so cleverly written. Not only does it have many common elements of Thurber's writings: short and to the point, endless humor, and satirical treatment of familial dispute, but it also contains a very different feature.
Usually his works describe unusual problems, ghosts, weird servants, and broken dams, with an everyday solution. However, this timeless story deals with an ordinary problem, dog behavior and discipline, yet has a very eccentric solution. The story is centered around the family dog, an Airedale named Muggs. Muggs has a tendency to bite people, family, friends, relatives, acquaintances, anybody. Everyone in the family hates the dog except the mother. It is because of the mother's continual support that the dog stays. On one occasion, Muggs bites a Congressman who was to do business with the father. The mother rationalizes the dog's behavior by pointing out that the Congressman's horoscope showed he couldn't be trusted. In this and in all other circumstances regarding the dog, the mother elevated Muggs' status above everyone else's in the household, including the father.

Hey, folks. We don't want Mr. Thurber to die again, do we?

Thurber Aphorisms
"It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers."
"Let us not look back to the past with anger, nor towards the future with fear, but look around with awareness."

"You can fool too many of the people too much of the time."

"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"

Thurber's Books

The Owl In the Attic: And Other Perplexities (1931)
Fables for Our Time: And Famous Poems Illustrated (poems) (1940)
Decade 1931 - 1941: A Commemorative Anthology (1941)
The Thurber Carnival (1942)
My World - and Welcome to It (1942)
Many Moons (1942)
The Great Quillow (1944)
Thurber Country: The Classics Collection about Males and Females, Mainly of Our Own Species (1946)
The Beast in Me And Other Animals: A Collection of Pieces and Drawings About Human Beings and Less Alarming Creatures (1950)
The Thurber Album (1952)
Thurber Dogs (1955)
Further Fables for Our Time (1956)
Alarms and Diversions (1957)
Lanterns and Lances (1961)
Credos and Curios (1962)
Vintage Thurber: A Collection, in Two Volumes, of the Best Writings And Drawings of James Thurber with an Introduction By Helen Thurber (1963)
Thurber and Company (1966)
92 Stories (1987)
Collecting Himself (1988)
People Have More Fun Than Anybody: A Centennial Celebration of Drawings and Writings by James Thurber (1994)
Better to Have Loafed And Lost: The Best of James Thurber (2002)
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: And Other Tales (2005)



Non fiction
My Life and Hard Times (1948)
On Poetry and Poets (1956)
The Years with Ross (1959)
Is Sex Necessary?: or Why You Feel The Way You Do (1960) (with E B White)
The Executives in a Word Book (1963) (with Margaret S Ernst)
Thurber: A Biography (1975) (with Burton Bernstein)
Selected Letters of James Thurber (1981)
Thurber on Crime (1991)


Anthologies containing stories by James Thurber
Reading I've Liked (1946)
Knights of Madness: Further Comic Tales of Fantasy (1998)
Bangs And Whimpers: Stories About the End of the World (1999)

Short stories
Interview with a Lemming (1941)
The White Rabbit Caper (1949)
My Life and Hard Times

You know, edgar, I believe The Thurber Carnival is tied in somehow with Camille Saint Saens and his Aquarium, but I can't verify it.

Love his fables. The Unicorn in the Garden, and an updated Little Red Riding Hood.

I'm afraid you got me there. If I ever get a clue, I will transmit it here.

Ok, Texas. I may be confusing Thurber with Nash.

You don't see them on the road any more.

Very funny, edgar.