Why did God give me two ears and one mouth? So that I will hear more and talk less.

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.

Humor is, I think, the subtlest 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.

First-rate people hire first-rate people; second-rate people hire third-rate people.

Satire is focused bitterness.

Many [of the Americans] polled showed a marked disapproval of the Wallonians, Danerians, and Pirenians. The fact that these minorities were invented by the pollster did not diminish the hostility.

I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.