Her own mother lived the latter years of her life in the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house.

—James Thurber

fear electricity suspicion mother

About James Thurber

Portrait of James Thurber

James Grover Thurber (December 8, 1894 – November 2, 1961) was an American cartoonist, writer, humorist, journalist, and playwright. He was born in Columbus, Ohio, and attended Ohio State University (OSU), leaving in 1918 without graduating. He spent over a year in Paris, working for the US State Department as...

More quotations from James Thurber

Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else?

—James Thurber

difference conformity

It had only one fault. It was kind of lousy.

—James Thurber

I do not have a psychiatrist and I do not want one, for the simple reason that if he listened to me long enough, he might become disturbed.

—James Thurber

It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.

—James Thurber

questions knowledge curiosity certainty doubt answers

The only rules comedy can tolerate are those of taste, and the only limitations those of libel.

—James Thurber

comedy taste libel

More quotations tagged with “mother”

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.

—William Makepeace Thackeray

God heart mother

I don't have a bank account, because I don't know my mother's maiden name.

—Paula Poundstone

humor security mother

We are impressed with nature's power, but by projecting upon this power an image of the feminine, the mother, we reassure ourselves—for surely a mother will always be loving toward us, continue to feed us, clothe us, and carry away our wastes, and never kill us, no matter how much toxic waste we put in the soil or how many CFCs in the ozone. The sense of nature as inexhaustible mother encourages us to feel there are no limits to a finite planet, while the sense of nature as benign and ever-loving mother permits us to continue disregarding a crescendo of warnings.

—Elizabeth Dodson Gray

power danger nature environmentalism mother feminine

What mother and daughter understand each other, or even have sympathy for each other's lack of understanding?

—Maya Angelou

understanding sympathy mother daughter

All that remains to the mother in modern consumer society is the role of scapegoat; psychoanalysis uses huge amounts of money and time to persuade analysands to foist their problems onto the absent mother, who has no opportunity to utter a word in her own defense. Hostility to the mother in our societies is an index of mental health.

—Germaine Greer

society money problems mother motherhood psychoanalysis

History

15 May 2015 Added