“Satire is focused bitterness.”
“We see things as we are, not as they are.”
“Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.”
“Courage is the capacity to confirm what can be imagined.”
“If you are going to do something wrong, at least enjoy it.”
“Truth is stranger than fiction; fiction has to make sense.”
“Extremists think ''communication'' means agreeing with them.”
“I never cease being dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe.”
“The only reason for being a professional writer is that you can't help it.”
“Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed.”
“Humor is, I think, the sublets and chanciest of literary forms. It is surely not accidental that there are a thousand novelists, essayists, poets or journalists for each humorist. It is a long, long time between James Thurbers”
“In the dark colony of night, when I consider man's magnificent capacity for malice, madness, folly, envy, rage, and destructiveness, and I wonder whether we shall not end up as breakfast for newts and polyps, I seem to hear the muffled cries of all the words in all the books with covers closed.”
“A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood. The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others.”