Sophistication might be described as the ability to cope gracefully with a situation involving the presence of a formidable menace to one's poise and prestige (such as the butler, or the man under the bed, but never the husband).
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Citations by James Grover Thurber
in Quotes & Aphorisms (Wisdom)
He who hesitates is sometimes saved.
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One Martini is all right, two is too many, three is not enough.
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I love the idea of there being two sexes, don't you?
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But those rare souls whose spirit gets magically into the hearts of men, leave behind them something more real and warmly personal than bodily presence, an ineffable and eternal thing. It is everlasting life touching us as something more than a vague, recondite concept. The sound of a great name dies like an echo; the splendor of fame fades into nothing; but the grace of a fine spirit pervades the places through which it has passed, like the haunting loveliness of mignonette.
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in Quotes & Aphorisms (Art)
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 count his nineteen elephants during a snowstorm while crossing the Alps.
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You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward.
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My opposition lies in the fact that offhand answers have little value or grace of expression, and that such oral give and take helps to perpetuate the decline of the English language.
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in Quotes & Aphorisms (Wisdom)
Speed is scarcely the noblest virtue of graphic composition, but it has its curious rewards. There is a sense of getting somewhere fast, which satisfies a native American urge.
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Now I am not a cat man, but a dog man, and all felines can tell this at a glance: a sharp, vindictive glance.
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