Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Thurber admits his written works lack some quality of the original spoken version.
In plain terms
My writing loses something compared to how I said it.
What can you take from it?
Spoken words can be better than written ones.

Where it applies

  • publishing
  • autobiography
  • creative process

Putting it to work

  • revising drafts
  • speaking publicly
  • analyzing media

Questions to consider

  • Does writing lose voice?
  • Which medium is better?

Another view

It assumes written text is inferior to speech.

More from James Thurber

  1. There is something about a poet which leads us to believe that he died, in many cases, as long as 20 years before his birth.

    Permalink to quote #89
  2. Unless artists can remember what it was to be a little boy, they are only half complete as artist and as man.

    Permalink to quote #91
  3. There is no exception to the rule that every rule has an exception

    Permalink to quote #88

Related quotes

  1. The melodic curves of speech are an expression of the complete organism and of all phases of its spiritual activities. They demonstrate whether a man is stupid…

    Leos JanacekLeos Janacek quote #1
  2. 'Did I say that? One says so many things, and the problem is they all get written down.'

    John AshberyJohn Ashbery quote #2
  3. Ancient Indians had a far deeper confidence in living speech than in the moral, impersonal and derivative written communication. When words issued from the mou…

    Robert T. OliverRobert T. Oliver quote #2