Quote #49
When all things are equal, translucence in writing is more effective than transparency, just as glow is more revealing than glare.
More from James Thurber
- I always begin at the left with the opening word of the sentence and read toward the right and I recommend this method.
- Editing should be, especially in the case of old writers, a counseling rather than a collaborating task. The tendency of the writer-editor …
- The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms - hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal.
- The wit makes fun of other persons; the satirist makes fun of the world; the humorist makes fun of himself, but in so doing, he identifies …
- With 60 staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and a definite hardening of the paragraphs.
- We all know that the theater and every play that comes to Broadway have within themselves, like the human being, the seed of self-destructi…
- Comedy has to be done en clair. You can't blunt the edge of wit or the point of satire with obscurity. Try to imagine a famous witty saying…
- If a playwright tried to see eye to eye with everybody, he would get the worst case of strabismus since Hannibal lost an eye trying to coun…