My Life and Hard Times is the 1933 autobiography of James Thurber. It is considered his greatest work as he relates in bewildered deadpan prose the eccentric goings on of his family and the town beyond (Columbus, Ohio).
Characters include the maid who lives in constant fear of being hypnotised; a grandfather who believes that the American Civil War is still going on; a mother who fears electricity is leaking all over the house and Muggs, an Airedale Terrier that had a liking for biting people.
The book was a best seller and also achieved high critical praise. Russell Baker writing in the New York Times said it was "possibly the shortest and most elegant autobiography ever". Ogden Nash said it was "just about the best thing I ever read"', and Dorothy Parker said "Mad, I don't say. Genius I grant you."
Famous quotes containing the words life, hard and/or times:
“We have created an industrial order geared to automatism, where feeble-mindedness, native or acquired, is necessary for docile productivity in the factory; and where a pervasive neurosis is the final gift of the meaningless life that issues forth at the other end.”
—Lewis Mumford (1895–1990)
“So you finally got wise to yourself, did you? Funny thing about you women. Most of you don’t get wise soon enough. You wait until you’re so old nobody want you.... You’re not so hard to look at. Give yourself a tumble, you’ll make the grade.”
—Willis Goldbeck (1900–1979)
“Preschoolers think and talk in concrete, literal terms. When they hear a phrase such as “losing your temper,” they may wonder where the lost temper can be found. Other expressions they may hear in times of crisis—raising your voice, crying your eyes out, going to pieces, falling apart, picking on each other, you follow in your father’s footsteps—may be perplexing.”
—Ruth Formanek (20th century)