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.

More from Selected Letters of James Thurber

• Laughter need not be cut out of anything, since it improves everything.
• But what is all this fear of and opposition to Oblivion? What is the matter with the soft Darkness, the Dreamless Sleep?
• From now on, I think it is safe to predict, neither the Democratic nor the Republican Party will ever nominate for President a candidate without good looks, stage presence, theatrical delivery, and a sense of timing.
• It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers.
• It is better to have loafed and lost, than never to have loafed at all.
• Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.