Biography

As a child Thurber lost his left eye in a game when his brother accidentally shot him with a toy arrow. He developed a rare condition called sympathetic opthalmia, in which trauma to one eye can affect sight in the other, and was troubled by vision problems for the rest of his life. By 1941 Thurber was legally blind and he eventually had to give up drawing cartoons, but was able to continue writing through dictation. Thurber's memory was so strong he could compose a 2,000-word story in his head, remember it overnight, and dictate it to his secretary the next day.

Once rewrote Edgar Allen Poe's famous poem, "The Raven", and told it from the viewpoint of the bird.

Was a dog lover and competed in several shows with his poodles.

Pictured on a 29¢ US commemorative postage stamp in the Literary Arts series, issued 10 September 1994, celebrating the centennial of his birth.

In 1960, received a Special Tony Award, along with Burgess Meredith, for "A Thurber Carnival."

Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness.

A woman's place is in the wrong.

Early to rise and early to bed makes a man healthy, wealthy, and dead.

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

Well, if I called the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?